


And They Were Roommates...

by SilentSamLikesHam



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, College, Did I Mention Angst?, F/F, F/M, Happy Ending, Like really slow, M/M, Maybe HAppy ending, Misunderstandings, Multi, Oh My God, Probably happy ending, Sharing a Room, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 55,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25414699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentSamLikesHam/pseuds/SilentSamLikesHam
Summary: “I see” Alex’s voice is void of all it’s previous emotion, his eyes are dimmer, and his smile is long wiped away. The response feels like a stone dropping in John’s stomach. He’d been starting to like his roommate, over the past five minutes he’d gotten somewhat attached, wondering if maybe he would have a friend here, one to work with as Alex had suggested not even two minutes ago. He could feel the fairy tale drifting far from his reach.“Well then, I hope you won’t be too uncomfortable sleeping in the same room as a queer immigrant. Of course I’m sure you can always call down to administration and get yourself a room swap, wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable with my gay longing looks or the chance that I might steal your shit or your job or something” The words ram into Lauren’s chest like tiny darts.------------------Or another Hamilton college AU where these two are roommates.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, Gilbert du Motier Marquis de Lafayette/Hercules Mulligan, Maria Reynolds/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, Thomas Jefferson/James Madison
Comments: 233
Kudos: 364





	1. First Impressions Are Important

Columbia college hadn’t been John Laurens first choice of university. Stanford had been his first, along with its insanely impressive medical course and single roomed dorms. He’d been all set to work himself to the bone, to ignore the social side of college life and instead get top of his class in medicine. He didn’t need a roommate; he didn’t want a pair of eyes and a sharp college mind judging him every day. He’d had enough judging to last him a lifetime.

But John wasn’t at Stanford now. He wasn’t following his passion of medicine. Instead he was enrolled and studying law at Columbia college. All it had taken was a stern look from his father and a brief debate to convince John that some battles just weren’t worth fighting. He’d enjoyed debating when he was in high school, he was sure he would find a way to enjoy it here.

No, the course wasn’t the problem. The building before him was. He leans his head against the steering wheel of his car for a moment and gathers himself before opening the driver’s door and heading around to his trunk. He’d probably need one hand to pick up his room key and open his dorm door, so he decides it’s best to just bring his wheeled suitcase in with him, leaving his boxes of possessions in the car for now.

The dorms building was massive. It was the oldest of the three dorm buildings on campus and it was also the most expensive. It had recently been renovated and the inside was meant to be a modern work of art. The outside was red bricked and reminded John of old British apartments. Large bay windows allow a view into the common area on the ground floor and as he passes one of them John can see several college students and family members bustling about the foyer and sitting room area.

 _It must be nice to have someone help you move in_ , he bitterly thinks before shaking himself out of his own self-deprecation. His siblings were too young to get a bus back home from here alone and he wouldn’t have wanted his fathers help in a million years. He did not need to deal with that type of attention on his first day.

He lugs his case up the steps at the front door and rolls it across the wooden floor of the foyer. He notices a desk to his right with a woman seated behind it. She looks to be in her forties or so and she smiles at John as he enters the building.

“Name sir?” She asks as her eyes flicker from John to his luggage.

“John” He responds, his eyes scanning the desk and noticing several boxes of keys are sitting on it. He assumes one of them will unlock his new personal hell, a shared room.

“John- ?” Her voice trails off as she looks down at a sheet before her, her finger tracing a list of names starting with J. She gives him a flicker of a confused look and it takes John a moment to realise she needs a surname.

“Laurens” He says, just loud enough for her to hear. He feels himself glancing around as he says it, but no one near by seems to have heard him. In fact, everyone in the foyer was either talking obnoxiously loud, or hurrying through the chaos.

By the time he’s back to watching her flick through sheets, she’s found his name. “Ah yes, room 314. Third floor, you want to turn right at the staircase or if you take the elevator it’ll be to the left” She gives him another beaming smile as she hands him a silver key attached to a plastic tag that has his room number on it.

“Thanks” He tries to smile back at her as he leaves, it’s probably a good idea to make a good impression with the administration around here. Especially if he ends up with some unbearable roommate that he would have to try get away from.

He walks away from the desk and darts his gaze around the room to try find the elevators. The silver doors are just around the corner but there’s a queue of about ten or so people waiting to use them, all carrying much heavier looking items than John.

He changes tactic and heads to the large double width stairs that go up in the middle of the foyer and twist around into a loose spiral. As he approaches the stairs, he notices a well-dressed man struggling to balance an overflowing box in one hand and drag a large case up behind him with the other.

“Need some help?” John asks from behind, already using his free hand to grab a handle on the bag that’s on the opposite side of the case to where the man was clutching it.

The man whips his head around to glance at John over his shoulder, his brown eyes wide at first but relaxing as the strain on his arm eases up.

“Yes, very much so”

The pair struggle up the stairs and the man indicates he’s also heading to the third floor. Trying to lug a case with each arm leaves John’s biceps burning, but it feels nice to help someone out and possibly be making, at the very least, an acquaintance at this new place.

When they reach the landing, John lets the other man’s case down and gently shakes the pain from his arm away.

“Thank you, uh-” The man pauses, realising he hadn’t asked for John’s name.

“John” He stretches his hand out as he says it and the man shifts the weight of the box against his chest and puts out his own hand.

“Aaron Burr”

The name strikes a memory in John’s head and he realises he recognises it. Burr used to be a politician his dad knew. He’d heard his dad give out about the man before, referring to him as indecisive and a centralist. John couldn’t even remember the party he was in. That opinion was from two years ago though, before Burr and his wife had passed away in a shipping incident.

“I better go find my room, but thanks again John. I didn’t know how I was going to make it up here” Burr picks up his case and heads in the opposite direction to where Laurens was going. Without meaning to he watches the room Burr enters and catalogues it away. At least he knew where he could find one friendly face around here.

_One friendly face Jack, that’s all you truly need in life._

Laurens ignores the quote ringing in his head and trudges down the long and twisting corridor towards his room. The hallways are pretty simple, maroon carpets, cream walls and wooden doors decorated with white boards and metal numbering.

A few of the doors are open as he passes, inside people are putting up posters, making beds and chatting amongst each other. How did people already know each other here?

He walks slower than usual, dreading his own room reveal. He sends a silent prayer to whatever is out there that he made it to the room first. Or that his roomie had decorated and gone out somewhere. He’d much prefer to set up alone and get his bearings.

As he turns a corner, he finally catches sight of his room and… the door was open. Worse yet, raised voices were already drifting from it.

“Of course, it’s important, if my desk wobbles while I work then I’ll never get anything done!” The voice is somewhat high-pitched John notes and sounds quite frustrated.

“Why not just swap with your roommate then? It’s not like he’ll notice” Another male voice replies, this one with a thick French accent.

“No, that’d be rude Laf, plus I’d only have to deal with the noise of him wobbling it and-”

The voice cuts off mid rant as Lauren’s gently raps his knuckles on the door. The room is basic enough, two single beds sit either side of the room with dressing tables separating them, desks are placed at the foot of the beds and the wardrobes are on either side of the doorway as you enter.

One of the two men is sprawled across the bed on the left-hand side of the room, he has a clean-cut beard and curly black hair pulled back into tight high bun and is wearing a pink tank top and light grey sweatpants. The French man, Laurens pieces together as he notices the other man who’d been ranting about the desk was kneeling on the floor stuffing paper under one of the legs as he rocks the table against it.

The man straightens abruptly as Lauren drags his case into the room. He’s slightly smaller than John, that surprisingly is the first thought to pass through his mind. He also has long chestnut hair that’s tied back in a low ponytail. This man has a goatee and is wearing some faded jeans and a grey hoodie with Columbia in capital letters across it.

“Ah you must be my roommate, I’m Alexander, Alexander Hamilton, although most people just call me Alex. I hope you don’t mind I took this side of the room, I didn’t really have a preference but I was first here so I just picked, but if you have a thing about the right side of the room that’s fine, I’ve no issue moving! Oh, this is Lafayette by the way.” He gestures to the other man “You’ll probably see him a lot we’re practically brothers and he’s only three rooms down. He studies history, creative writing and politics. I join him with the last one, although I’m doing all law and politcal related subjects. As well as any societies on campus that help with that. I-“

“Alex, Alex, breath mon ami, you’re going to scare him off” Lafayette thankfully stops the word vomit that is being hurled at Laurens and places a hand on the man’s shoulder to grab Hamilton’s attention.

Alex glances briefly at the French man, who was standing a good few inches taller than Alex, before whipping his gaze back to the still silent Laurens.

“Right, sorry. I tend to ramble” He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t even catch your name”

John feels a small flutter in his stomach at the curious and bright expression on the shorter man’s face. Laurens couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen such an enthusiastic introduction. Alex’s eyes had lit up as he spoke, his body tensed, and his arms wind milled excitedly around as he spoke. John’s roommate was certainly something.

“John-” He pauses for half a second before continuing, realising in a split moment that he couldn’t exactly hide his surname from a roommate. He could probably just emit it for the moment though. “-and ah the right side is fine” He shakes the outstretched hand, noting the firm and aggressive grip the other man uses as his face breaks out into a grin.

John lugs his case onto his bed and can feel the pairs eyes on him as he does so.

“What do you study then John?” Lafayette questions, the man leaning against the wardrobe now as Hamilton finally steadies his desk.

“Law” John responds easily, glad there wasn’t a follow up question on his full name.

Alex’s head whips around at that, Laurens is surprised he doesn’t snap his neck with the speed.

“We’re probably taking a lot of the same modules then. That’s perfect! Notes will be a lot more reliable with two of us, not to mention group assignments and online quizzes and-”  
“Alexxx” Lafayette groans, smiling fondly at the other man.

Hamilton has enough awareness it seems to look somewhat guilty “Right sorry off again”

John lets out a light chuckle “It’s alright. Most of my friends back home are debaters, I’m well used to talkative folk”

Alex’s whole face lights up at this revelation.

“Debater huh? I loved debating back in high school. I went all over America at one point with my school’s team. We never won in the end though, but we got runner up twice for nationals. You competed yourself then? Where’s home for you?”

It takes John a moment to realise the question he should be taking away from this roundabout rant was where was John’s home. “South Carolina”

The answer gets a more shadowed look across his roommate’s face “The south huh? Should have guessed by the accent. I’ve been living in New York the last few years with my foster family, same with Laf here, although as you can guess he’s French. Do you find the south very-”

The question that was about to be thrown at him is cut off by another figure bounding loudly into the room.

“There you two are! I've been waiting in the foyer for the last ten minutes, I thought we were hitting up the orientation hall to sign up for things!” A broad shouldered, somewhat intimidating man stands arms crossed at the doorway staring down the now sheepish looking Lafayette and Hamilton.

“This is our other good friend Hercules Mulligan. He doesn’t usually look this angry, or well that’s not true, but- I swear he’s a softie” Alex explains, noticing the startled look on John’s face.

“Sorry Herc, we bumped into Alex’s roommate” Lafayette gestures towards him.

Hercules gives Laurens a quick up and down and nods his head as a greeting.

“Nice to meet yeah, sorry if these two morons already have you wanting to pack up”

Lafayette lets out a mocking gasp and dramatically clasps a hand over his chest as Hamilton sends the larger man a glare.

“You’re hilarious Herc, this is John by the way, John-“ Alex’s voice trails off as he glances back at John, realising he didn’t know his roommates full name.

After an awkward pause John fills it in “Laurens. John Laurens.”

“Laurens huh? I don’t know many of them. Except of course for that pompous asshole politician Henry Laurens, down in South-“ Alex’s voice trails off again. John can practically see the gears turning in the other man’s head and he feels himself inwardly cringe. Of course he’d get roomed with some politics fanatic. He knows before Alex has even opened his mouth that the man has it figured out, they’re from the same state and “He’s not like your uncle or something is he?”

Before he can even answer it’s clear the tone in the room has completely changed. Lafayette is standing up straight now, his chin raised and his eyes sharply scanning John’s face. Hercules does the opposite; he starts to lean against the door frame, somehow that seems even more intimidating. As for Hamilton, his whole body has gone rigid.

“My father actually” John reveals. He can feel his heart pounding as he says it, he can feel the twist in his stomach and the sudden dryness of his mouth. The silence that falls over the room leaves a slight ringing in John’s ears and a stinging in his eyes as he forces himself to keep them open, to watch the reaction of the room.

The reaction is immediate. The friendly welcoming faces go cold and stony. It’s obvious John’s father was someone the group despised, or at least his bills and ideals were.

“I see” Alex’s voice is void of all it’s previous emotion, his eyes are dimmer, and his smile is long wiped away. The response feels like a stone dropping in John’s stomach. He’d been starting to like his roommate, over the past five minutes he’d gotten somewhat attached, wondering if maybe he would have a friend here, one to work with as Alex had suggested not even two minutes ago. He could feel the fairy tale drifting far from his reach.

“Well then, I hope you won’t be too uncomfortable sleeping in the same room as a queer immigrant. Of course, I’m sure you can always call down to administration and get yourself a room swap, wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable with my gay longing looks or the chance that I might steal your shit or your job or something” The words ram into Lauren’s chest like tiny darts.

He could hear the exact parts of Hamilton’s tirade that were perfect quotations from speeches his father had given on television and at rallies. The man’s tone was harsh and spitting and John was hit with this heavy feeling of unfairness. Who did this guy think he was throwing assumptions at John? Just because of who his father was.

Lauren’s had spent most of his life dealing with this exact type of crap and he could feel parts of his blood boiling under his skin. He wasn’t sure if it was from frustration or anger, but he bit back at his now glaring roommate.

“Sounds to me like you’re the one with the problem Hamilton” The surname runs out of his mouth with more spite than John intended, Alex’s eyes narrow instinctively at the tone. “If you’re so uncomfortable bunking with a southern conservative you can visit the office yourself, you know in case I fill my wardrobe with guns or pin a confederate flag above my bed.”

He takes a step forward as he talks, the two men now almost nose to nose. The two inches of height giving John this small sense of smug satisfaction. The thing is though, John wasn’t really a conservative, a fact that had destroyed his relationship with his father a long time ago, nor did he have any guns or that awful flag tucked away in any of his cases or boxes. He was just saying similar presumptuous stereotypes to Hamilton to get back at him. Alex had judged him in a split second and made up is own mind about John, he wasn’t going to stammer through reasons why Hamilton should like him, or why he was wrong about John. The jackass could figure that out himself if he wanted.

Anger flares up in Hamilton’s eyes “Are you out of your goddamn-”

Before Alex can break into what was definitely going to be a heated and scathing retort, Lafayette interrupts.

“Alex.” His voice is stern, not at all like the light-hearted sing song tone he’d been using a moment ago “He’s not worth it. C’mon we can go sort this out downstairs, you two obviously won’t suit living together.”

The French man looks John up and down again, like he’s seeing him for the first time since he’d entered the room. His lips are drawn into a straight and disgusted line.

“Yeah Ham, this sucker isn’t worth your words. It’ll be like talking to the wall.”

The pair exit, glaring daggers at John and hovering outside the door for their friend.

Alexander gives John one last frustrated and confused glare, like he can’t comprehend the very existence of the man, before he storms out of the room. He slams the door behind him on the way out and as the sound echoes through him, John finds himself sitting on the edge of the free bed, his hands curled into quaking fists.

_The world’s not fair Jack. That’s why we have to be. Everyone gets a chance. Everyone can be loved_

His mom had obviously never met someone as arrogant and self-righteous as Alexander Hamilton.


	2. Orientation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for such an over whelming response to my first chapter! I was not expecting such lovely comments beneath my work :) I hope you enjoy this chapter as well.

Alexander Hamilton was struggling to remember the last time he had been this livid. He was standing outside the dorm’s administration office with his arms folded, refusing to leave until they helped him.

“Look sir, there’s really nothing we can do for you. Our dorms have a strict no swapping procedure that can only be overlooked if one of the roommates feels threatened or has significant proof of harassment.” The 30 year old male clerk was wringing his hands nervously as he spoke. He had almost half a foot of height on Alex, but the malice waves of fury radiating off the smaller college man is much more terrifying.

“I’m telling you I feel threatened! I’m rooming with a southern conservative; he’s going to shoot me in the side ‘accidentally’ some day and then _sir_ it’ll be your head on the line” Hamilton jabs a finger aggressively towards the man as he speaks. 

“I’m afraid that a difference in political opinions is not a sufficient reason to-” 

Alex doesn’t let him finish. After several minutes of this insufferable conversation he realises this is all textbook learnt off answers. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with this man.

“I’ll be back” Alex warns as he storms out of the building “With proof!”

It wasn’t like it’d take long. If there was one thing Hamilton was great at, it was being annoying beyond belief. All he had to do was push this Laurens guys buttons hard enough and the man would eventually snap, showing his true southern conservative feral self. 

“No luck?” Hercules guesses as Alex stomps over to them. They were sat on a bench outside the office building, Hercules had his elbows resting on his knees while Lafayette was spread out and slouching against the other side of the bench.

“Apparently my concerns aren’t sufficient enough reasons for a room change” The words slither out from beneath his still grinding teeth. He’s so frustrated that he doesn’t notice the worried glance shared between his friends.

“Well look as you usually say, no sweat” Lafayette tries, jumping to his feet and waving his hands dramatically, trying to grab Alex’s attention. “You can always take the floor in Hercules and I’s room and just ignore him when you do have to be in there.”

“Oh, I don’t plan on going anywhere Laf, I’ll outlast that asshole, give him an idea of what it’s like to be someone always looking over their shoulder, always tense, always-”

“Right well,” Hercules cuts Hamilton off mid rant as he stands up and wraps an arm around his friend’s shoulders “before you get too far into your evil genius, diabolical plans of ridding your room of Mr John Laurens, can we please, for the love of God, go to the orientation hall.”

Lafayette lets out a laugh as he notices the almost pouting expression on Mulligan’s face “ _Oui oui mon ami_ , anything to cheer our sorry selves up” 

Alex sighs, that last part of Laf’s line was an understatement. He needed a distraction. He needed to forget about his room for the moment. He’d been so excited for a roommate, hoping and praying that they’d be interested in the same stuff as him. That they wouldn’t mind him staying up late, wouldn’t mind his ranting. When he’d heard Laurens was a law major, he’d felt his heart soar several stories higher than the building. Now, as he followed his friends to one of the large halls on campus, he felt like he was marching through a thick pond of muck.

His friends more or less dragged him all the way to the societies and clubs sign up stands. They cracked jokes, made plans for the week ahead and overall, just did their best to get his mind targeted on something else. It wasn’t long before he was laughing along and fooling with them as they sauntered through the sign-up tables.

“So, what’s the plan men?” Lafayette questions, his eyes already scanning over the creative drawing society’s sign up desk.

“Well I think Ham and I can guess where you’re going” Hercules teases, catching his friend’s longing gaze. “Go sign-up for your drawing, I can just about see the lacrosse stand down the back so I’m a head there” 

Lafayette’s eyes flick to Hamilton to see where he’s looking and he realises his shorter friend was already power walking towards the debater’s desk. 

“Typical” The abandoned pair mutter in unison before laughing it off and heading towards their own interests.

“Hello, I’d like to sign up for the college debating team. I’ve loads of experience already if that’s needed, I competed in competitions all across America the last few years and I was often picked for the panel. My name’s Alex by the way, Alexander Hamilton” The words tumble out of his mouth before the pretty woman behind the desk can even hand him a sign-up document.

“Well, I can certainly see you’re eager and motivated for the society. That’s always a plus” the woman chuckles, handing him across a pen and form. “Angelica Schuyler, I’m the head of the society”

“A pleasure” Alex grins, glancing away from the form long enough to give her a warm smile.

“At least we know your diction and words per minute is strong too” A second voice buts in, this time the tone is a lot more sarcastic and condescending.

Alex signs off his name with a flourish and turns his attention to the lanky male grinning at him across the table, he’s seated right beside Angelica.

“Thomas, Thomas Jefferson, vice-head of the debaters club” The man announces, before Alex even has the chance to ask the man for his name.

“Also, a pleasure” Alex replies, with not nearly as much warmth.

“I’m sure” the man rolls his eyes in a way that makes Alex’s skin crawl, but before he can pick a fight with the man a girl comes up to the table and starts asking him questions about the society.

“Ignore him” Angelica sighs, a half smirk on her face “He’s just intimidated by flesh blood”

“Am not” Thomas manages to throw in, before going through the application form with the lady.

“Here, this has all our social media details on it. You’ll be able to find out when practice is on and such.” She hands him over a business card littered with @ symbols, websites and an e-mail address. There’s a moment where the pairs hands brush and Alex has a brief thought about how soft and warm her hand felt before he’s waving goodbye to her. Her cheeks are tinged a slight red he notes, and he hopes she’s not getting dehydrated in the stuffy and humid air of the hall. 

His eyes scan the crowd to try pick out the usual mess of Lafayette’s hair bouncing about above the average height of most American crowds. As usual it’s not too hard to spot and his eye’s also catch sigh of a rainbow coloured, flag decorated stall beside his friend. Ah, Lafayette had finally found the best society on campus.

He catches up to his friend and ends up interrupting a conversation between him and a stunning brunette girl. 

“Ah Alexander, there you are!” Lafayette grins as soon as he catches eyes with his friend. “This lovely lady Eliza Schuyler was just telling me about the pride parade they’ll be hosting in second semester!”

“Schuyler?” Alex can’t help but question, an uncommon surname he’d just heard moments before.

“Yes, I’m assuming you just came from chatting to my sister” Eliza laughs, pointing her chin towards Angelica several stalls down.

“Yes, I have. She’s a much better face for the society than the man seated beside her” 

That gets a snort from Eliza “Thomas is a sweetheart really; he just tends to come off quite prickly at times”

“I’ve noticed” Alex deadpans before flicking his gaze across the stall. “So, what kind of stuff do you guys do throughout the year? I saw on your Facebook page you had all kinds of events, rallies, parades, anything I could think of, going on last year. Will it be like that again this year? I had some ideas actually for this one-” Alexander Hamilton rants about ideas and movements and everything in between for the next several minutes. He’s so invested in his beliefs that he doesn’t notice the awestruck look on Eliza’s face or the fact that she was hanging on to almost every word he was saying. 

Hercules and Lafayette manage to get through their application forms before sharing a knowing look at one another. Another person has fallen for the charm and energy that is their best friend, Alexander Hamilton. 

\-------------

After thirty minutes of lugging boxes up the stairs to his room and getting his clothes hung up, Hamilton still hadn’t returned. John assumes the room swapping process was not as smooth as Alex had previously assumed. 

He glares at the still full boxes; he really didn’t feel like unpacking them right now. He didn’t want to set up in this stupid room with his jackass roommate.

John lets himself pause to have a proper look at Hamilton’s side of the room. His bed sheet is a mix of golds and blacks but is pretty non-descript. He has a battered looking laptop sitting on his desk as well as a litter of books, notebooks, pens and a stack of paper. Someone was excited for note taking it seemed. 

Lauren’s also spots a framed picture of Alex and Lafayette on his bedside table with…no way. John marches forward and grabs the photo frame. He brings it up to the light coming in from the window above their bedside tables and sucks in a deep breath. Stood behind the two boys in the image was the very famous, very well-known, George Washington. A known liberal politician based up in New York.

Suddenly their first impressions made a lot more sense.

Out of all the people in the world to room with, the son of Henry Laurens was apparently rooming with the foster kid of George Washington, Henry's number one rival. John glances briefly at their shared bathroom door as he leaves the picture back down on Hamilton’s desk, he suddenly feels like he might get sick.

Before he can think too much on the now unnervingly large problem on his hands, there’s a gentle knock on the door. It must be someone looking for Alex, no one here knew him yet.

He reluctantly swings the door open and is startled to find Aaron Burr on the other side.

“Ah John there you are, I’d hoped I’d gotten the room right. I hope you don’t mind I noticed the numbers on your key tag earlier. I was about to head down to the orientation hall, figured you might be looking to sign up for something yourself?” 

The gesture was sweet, Aaron going out of his way to include John. At least that was John’s first thought before he notices the nervous fiddling of Burr’s sleeve and the smile that didn’t quite reach the other man’s eyes. The gaze looked almost pleading. Maybe John wasn’t the only one feeling alone and out of their depth today.

“Yeah I am actually, thanks for thinking of me” He smiles brightly as he speaks, feeling accomplished as he notices the tension drain from Burr’s tense shoulders. He grabs his phone and a leather jacket and locks the door behind him before the pair head for the foyer. 

“I realise I never did catch your full name earlier, sorry about that” Aaron comments as they make their way down the stairs.

“Right sorry, it’s uh Lauren’s, John Laurens”

Aaron’s steps falter for a second and John gets another wave of nauseous, another person on campus is now apparently going to hate him.

“Ah yes, Henry’s son, right? Oh, sorry man, we probably met a few times in the past then at events and such. I’m pretty sure my father Aaron Burr, uh senior that is, knew your father a few years back” Apparently the almost stumble was just from shock of Burr figuring out the pair should already know each other. As he speaks John scans his face for any change of expression and to his shock Burr just looks more relaxed than before.

“No need to apologise, honestly I don’t really remember you either. We probably did see each other around but I’m sure you remember how dull and long those events were. I think I’ve been politely introduced to a couple hundred sons and daughters of various politicians” 

Burr lets out a hearty laugh at John’s comment. The sound lifted a weight off John’s shoulders that he hadn’t even realised he’d been carrying. It felt nice.

“We’d probably have quite the network if we’d all kept in touch” Burr comments as they exit the building and start making their way through several tree cocooned lanes as they make their way across campus towards the main events hall.

“True, but good lord some of them were incredibly dull”

Another laugh from Burr and suddenly John’s day isn’t so bad.

“I’m pretty sure the most exciting conversation I ever had with any of those kids was about a toy model train they’d gotten that Christmas. It ended up turning into an hour-long lecture from the kid about different kinds of steam engines.” 

Now it was Lauren’s turn to chuckle “Sounds about right. I have a feeling we’ll find much more colourful people at this place” 

“I don’t doubt that. I noticed your roommates’ stuff was up already, anyone interesting?”

“Interesting as in he’s a complete douche” Despite barely knowing the man, John ends up telling him all about the confrontation in his room that had happened just an hour ago. He leaves out some of his internal monologue, some of that was way too personal for a newly forming friend. He does however rant for a minute or two about the presumptuous and downright rudeness of Alexander Hamilton.  
Aaron pauses before replying to John’s little rant about his roommate and for a moment John worries, he’d told the man too much. Maybe Burr would agree with Hamilton…

“I’m guessing that sort of reaction is why you left your surname out of your introduction earlier?”

John feels like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar as he sheepishly nods in head in affirmation. 

“Something like that…”

He chances a glance at Burr and realises the man is giving him a calculating and assessing blank look. The emotion that eventually settles on Burr’s face, however, is pity.

“Tm sorry you have to carry that around John. I know all about family names and the weight they hold” He sounds sad as he says it, but he keeps a small smile on his face. The optimism gives John a new impression the young man. 

“Well, let’s start crafting our own legacies then. No more shadows or weight carrying. There must be at least one society here we can make a name in” Lauren’s suggests, grinning around the bustling room of students and the endless maze of sign up stands. 

“Sounds good to me. There’s an acapella group I saw on the college website; I’m going to circle around and try find them. Meet back here in fifteen to see how we’re both getting on?” 

“Sounds good to me” John grins, giving the once again nervous looking man a reassuring smile before he loses himself in the crowd. 

There wasn’t many groups John had been interested in when he’d looked them up online. John was a perfectionist in everything he did, and he knew better than to spread himself too thin by joining too many groups.

The main two clubs to interest him had been the debating society and the creative drawing society. They would fill up any extra hours Lauren had spare after studying and projects. They would also be a good distraction to work on if he was going to be stuck in that room with Hamilton. 

He finds the debating table first and starts pushing his way through the crowd. He almost stops dead though as he hears the obnoxious ranting of Alexander behind him as he’s about halfway down a row of club stalls.

He turns his head and spots Hamilton in mid rant to some woman at a rainbow decorated stall. “PRIDE” was written across a wooden sign above it that John easily recognised as the college’s LGBTQ+ society. He’d investigated the group a few days back and although he wasn’t keen on attending some of the bigger rallies and demonstrations, the safe spaces and smaller events had interested him. 

It would have been his first chance to really get to know the community and make more friends in it. His online friends were incredible and had always reassured him of his insecurities within the community. They were always there when the guilt of what his father was doing to the community got to him and he started to believe he was some kind of sick espionage fraud. He’d been hoping to find that kind of support in person for once. 

The dream comes crashing down as the reality of his life sinks into his gut. If he even stepped foot near that stall today, not a mind an event, Hamilton would surely just rip him to pieces in front of the other members. No, John wouldn’t be welcome there. It was one experience he wouldn’t have the privilege of seeking.

He doesn’t even realise he’s scowling until Alexander takes that moment to notice him glaring down the row. The man’s eyes widen briefly before he shoots John an infuriated scowl. From Hamilton’s perspective it probably looked like John was angry about the mere existence of the society, not the fact that Lauren’s was furious he wouldn’t get to be a part of it.

He turns quickly on his heel and marches towards the debating desk. He didn’t have the energy to deal with the mess at his back right now. He needed something positive to look forward to this week, seeing as classes wouldn’t start until next Monday, a whole six days away. 

“Hi, I’d like to sign up for this society” John approaches the debating table right as a woman leaves one of the seats from behind it. She gets lost in the crowd before Lauren’s even gets a good look at her.  
A broad-shouldered man takes her place and although it’s quite rude, Lauren’s finds himself ignoring the charismatic brightly dressed student behind the desk who’d started to answer John’s question.

“Madison?” It couldn’t be… could it?

The man in question whips his head up from the papers he’d been sorting through as he sat down, a curious look on his face that quickly turns to recognition.

“Laurens, John Laurens, I thought you were attending Stanford this year?” Madison questions, a look of intrigue passing over his face.

“That had been the plan but, I changed majors last minute. Columbia had the better law course”

How could John have forgotten Madison was going here? James and John weren’t exactly friends. They’d never been close or overly eager to stay in touch with one another. But their fathers were always arm and arm at almost every event the two boys got dragged to. They’d spent days of their lives together, trying to get through dull days and boring business meetings. 

John actually felt like crying a little in relief. At least one person at this college knew him, knew his story, knew his father, knew at least parts of the narrative that have John and his father at ends with one another. 

_One friendly face_

She was right, it did mean a lot. 

“Ah, well I suppose we’ll see each other around a lot then. I’m majoring in it myself, along with my roommate Thomas Jefferson here”

The other man had looked quite put out at being excluded from the conversation, but his face instantly lit up under the other men’s attention.

“John was it? A pleasure to meet you. You’re planning on signing up today?” Jefferson passes him a form and a pen without waiting for a response.

“Yeah, thanks. I hope I’m capable enough for your club though. You guys had quite an impressive win last year” Lauren’s comments. He recognises Thomas now. The guy had been on the national team for the college last year, despite just being a first year. 

“Well if you’re friendly with Madison, I’m sure you’re intelligent enough. Stupid people bore him”

Lauren lets out a polite chuckle as Madison rolls his eyes at his debating partner. John passes the form back over and they take his student card for a moment to scan it through the system.

“All set” Madison smiles after the green tick flashes up on the registration screen. “You live on campus John?”

“Yeah, I’m over in the O’Briens dorms”

“Same with us. We’re in Room 215, yourself?” Madison both explains and questions.

“Room 314”

“Good to know” Madison grins, “Jefferson and I are thinking of heading out for something to eat this evening, we’ll stop by your room if you’re not busy and we can all head out and catch up”

The invite gives Lauren’s a comfort he hadn’t known he’d been craving. He had plans, actual plans with a friendly face this evening. Not to mention the other friendly face of Aaron Burr that was probably waiting for him by the front door at this stage.

“Sounds great. I have a friend around here somewhere; you’ve probably met him before too. I’ll bring him along”

“I look forward to meeting him or being reacquainted for that matter. See you around John”

Lauren’s doesn’t respond to Madison just shoots him and Jefferson a wave as he briskly makes his way over to the drawing desk. He signs up to the society without much chit chat, he wasn’t joining this society to talk, he was joining it to draw.

By the time he makes it over to the front door Burr is waiting for him. He smiles as John approaches and Lauren starts to get the smallest bit of hope that maybe, not everything had to be awful today.


	3. First Night Together

John should have known not to speak too soon. Just as Burr and himself are thinking of doing one last lap of the hall, he hears him.

“John Laurens and Aaron Burr! What are the chances?”

Laurens would know that squeaky voice anywhere. Naturally, with how this day was going, this man would have to show up. 

“Lee, good to see you” Burr greets the man with a wide smile as the pair turn to see the squat dark haired man standing behind them with a somewhat creepy grin stretched across his face.

“Am I glad to see some more like minded, high classed people around this place. The number of ruffians I’ve had to deal with today would shock you” 

Lee was one of the few people who could always make Laurens feel uneasy. Even now as he spoke, his words were cutting and snobbish; his gaze sharp and scanning the men before him for the response he wants and yet, he could go the whole interaction with an insincere cheery expression. 

John was glad Burr cut in with a response first. Laurens suddenly felt like he’d lost his tongue somewhere back at the debating stall.

“It’s always nice to see familiar faces in new crowds.” John was impressed with Burr’s diplomacy. He wasn’t agreeing with anything Lee was saying, and yet made it sound like he was. It was clear Burr had learned a lot from his father.

“True, very true. Speaking of familiar faces, I’m assuming you two will be joining the conservative party’s society on campus? I know your dad used to run it back in his day Laurens. Hope things won’t get too nasty if we both go for the position”

_Fat chance of that._ John might have been raised as a conservative, but with his mother’s influence at a young age and with his father being away a lot with meetings, John had always leaned on the liberal side. Especially after getting to terms with being gay during his teen years.

He notices Burr looking curiously at him from the side. Charles Lee is practically leaning forward in anticipation for his answer. No doubt that whatever John says will be parroted back to Lee’s father and thrown in John’s fathers face at some point. He’d have to be delicate about how he answers.

“I’m afraid I won’t be joining the society. I’m aiming for top of my class in law and focusing all my extra attention on the debating society. My ambitions after college lean more towards courtrooms and cases than politics”

Lee seems a bit put off by his response, but Laurens also catches a hint of relief. One less person standing in Charles way of dominating the conservative party after university. 

“That’s too bad to hear John. You would have made quite the politician. Your father must be disappointed” Lee says the words through another open-mouthed grin. This time John knows the question was being asked purely to be repeated on a phone call this evening.

“My father actually pushed me towards law.” Not exactly a lie. His father would have died of happiness if John had marched into his office one day rearing to be a conservative politician. Charles didn’t need to know that it was medicine Laurens father had steered him away from. 

As he’s speaking John gets jostled by some of the crowd and realises they’re standing near the entrance to the hall where a small bottleneck was starting to form. 

“I’m sorry Lee but it seems we’re a bit in the way here. We’ll see you around, yes?” Again, Burr’s politeness and ease at interacting with people like Lee astounds John. Ending the sentence with a question for Charles meant the over-eager, unbearable man could get the last word in. It was the perfect goodbye to make Lee feel like it was a positive interaction.

“Of course. Enjoy the rest of your day gentlemen” and with a forced nod of his head, Lee disappears into the crowd and John makes it outside to some fresh air.

“He’s a real piece of work that one” Laurens sighs, as soon as he’s positive they’re out of ear shot.

Burr snickers as the pair unconsciously move towards a nearby café.

“If I told you he was the train story kid would you be surprised?”

“Hah, not in the slightest” 

The two men grab a coffee each before seating themselves at a table under a large willow tree, right at the peripheral of the seating area.

“Did your father really push you towards law and away from politics?” The question from Burr surprises John. He hadn’t expected the other man to push the topic.

“Not exactly. He’d love if I joined the conservative party and campaigned at his side” in his shadow “But, I was more interested in doing medicine. Law became the common ground”

“What drove you away from politics then? Surely with how famous your father is, you wouldn’t have struggled to make a name for yourself” Burr stirs a packet of sugar into his coffee as he speaks, not picking up on the uncomfortable look flashing across Laurens’ face.

John rubs at the back of his neck before answering. The movement is a nervous tick he’d been trying to get rid of for years.

“Ah, well the problem with that is…I’m not exactly a conservative”

Burr was either doing a really good job of hiding his surprise or had already worked out Laurens political compass because the man didn’t even blink at the revelation. 

There’s a brief lull in the conversation as the two men take a sip of their drinks. Laurens keeps his own coffee dark and strong, the taste bitter against his tongue. Burr struggles to find a response that won’t cause any sort of rift between the pair.

“Well, not everyone follows their parent’s beliefs. You’re a liberal then?”

“Sort of” One of his hands fidgets with the lid of his drink “I try not to think about politics too much if I’m being honest. I always end up feeling angry, helpless or frustrated. I’d rather not build up a list of disagreements between my father and I”

Aaron nods his head as John speaks, letting the man finish without interrupting. He had a feeling this was not the easiest thing for Laurens to admit.

“Please don’t uh, spread that around though. My father’s well aware of my beliefs and our differences but, most of the media doesn’t know. I’d rather not have my tense home life splayed across newspaper headlines” Maybe he shouldn’t have spoken so much. Laurens was already regretting it, already he had the feeling of eyes staring into the back of his head. He hated feeling watched. 

“Don’t worry John, that’s your personal business. I won’t say a word to anyone”

The pair move on to more light and amiable conversation and John finds himself letting out a sigh of relief. For every man like Hamilton he would meet in life, there’d always be a Burr to balance it. 

\---------

“You should have seen the way he was glaring at me across the hall! Like he couldn’t fathom joining a queer society. The homophobia was practically suffocating. How am I meant to room with that? Not only that but did you see him chatting away to Charles Lee on the way out? Scum attracts scum it seems. Oh fuck, what if he brings him around to our room. I don’t think I could handle both of them” Hamilton finds himself once again ranting to his friends about John as they’re making their way through a large pepperoni pizza. 

“Hams you seriously got to relax man. Stressing about it isn’t going to prevent it. Just wait for him to step out of line and then you can get a new room” Hercules sighs, trying to talk his friend out of his frenzy.

“Hercules is right _mon petit lion_. Every time you get annoyed about this or have it ruin your day, is just another win for people like him” Lafayette adds, taking a swig of his drink as he finishes.

“Easy for both of you to say. You get to go back to your shared room” Alex mumbles, absently picking some pepperoni off one of his slices and eating it separately.

“Which you’re welcome to sleep in” Lafayette reminds him.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry I’ll stop complaining”

His friends let out a laugh. “That’ll be the day” Hercules manages to say between chuckles.

Alex rolls his eyes at his friends teasing but internally it makes him feel a lot better. 

He hadn’t expected his first day of college to be such a roller coaster of emotions. He was looking forward for classes to kick start and then the time he’d have to spend around John Laurens would drastically fall.

Hamilton enjoys himself that evening. The lads and himself meet up with the Schuyler sisters they’d met earlier that day along with some of the sister’s friends. Angelica was a year ahead of them, so she was able to tell them a lot about what to expect from the year ahead. 

They spend the evening bowling at a nearby arcade and then challenging one another to various games. Eliza shows her true colours at being a gaming master and completely whoops Alex at most of the shooter and racing games. Angelica and Hercules go all out on the dance dance revolution game and end up in a draw after several best of 3’s, 5’s, 7’s etc. The only one Hamilton seems to best any of them at is street fighter. He’d been big into playing the game when he first arrived in America and had most of the special combos learnt off. 

“ _Qu'est ce que se passe?_ You must be cheating” Lafayette groans as Alex kills him for the third time in a row.

“Sorry Laf” Hamilton chuckles, stepping away from the screen as “Game Over” flashes across it.

“I am never playing this stupid game with you ever again. You are the worst”

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game” Alex teases, wiggling his eyebrows at his friend. 

“Well as fun as it’s been to whoop Hercules ass at dancing” Angelica’s comment earns her a glare from said taller man and a loud scoff “We should head back to the dorms. I am beyond tired after today”

“Here here” Lafayette agrees, throwing an arm around Hamilton’s shoulders as he lets out a yawn. “ _Je suis fatigué!_ ”

Alex tries to hide his disappointment and worry as the gang walk back towards campus and through it’s many lane ways. But he was not looking forward to seeing Laurens again. How the hell was he meant to sleep in the same room as him? 

“It’ll be fine Alexander” Lafayette whispers in his friend’s ear as the dormitory building comes into view. “We’re three doors down don’t forget. Come knock at any time”

Alex just nods glumly, not trusting himself to break into another large rant about his roommate. He’d survived losing his mother, a hurricane, the trip to America and against all odds got himself a scholarship for his dream school. He was not about to be bullied into fearing his own bedroom by some southern asshole. 

Hamilton’s not sure if he’s relieved or disappointed when he spends the entire walk up the two flights of stairs hyping himself up for the encounter, to find their room is empty. It’s obvious the other man must have been here for a while at some point in the day because all his possessions are put away on his shelf, desk, bedside table etc, while his case and empty boxes have been piled up on the top of his wardrobe. 

Alex’s eyes scan over the sparkling new laptop sitting on his desk, naturally Laurens would have the newest version. There’s also a stack of law books sitting there with a can of stationary beside them. His bedside table is bare bar from a green snow globe with a turtle in it.

John had also decorated his half of the windowsill above it with seven other snow globes. Hamilton scoffs out loud when he notices the seven of them are inspired by the seven wonders of the world. Rich jackass probably had several holidays a year to go to such exotic places. He’s surprised though that someone like Laurens would collect such knick knacks to display. 

Alex also notices that above his pillow is a small collage of about ten photos stuck to the wall. There are several people about Laurens age featuring in the photos, along with some young kids; a woman Alex doesn’t recognise, and present in two of photos is, the scumbag himself, Henry Laurens. 

The last two things decorating John’s side of the room are a poster for the band Imagine Dragons and a large canvas that was covered in multiple painted turtles. On the bottom left of the canvas Hamilton could spot cursive script reading Happy Birthday J, M x. What was the story with John and turtles?

Before Alex could glare a hole through the other side of the room from the amount of attention he was giving it, the bedroom door swung open and the man himself sauntered in. 

Laurens has a smile on his face as he enters, and Alex catches the last of a wave he was giving to someone as he enters the room. His roommate pauses as the door closes as he realises Alex is just standing between their beds glaring at him.

“You got a problem or something?” John challenges, straightening out his back as he crosses his arms. His body language morphing from relaxed to strained.

Alex has a lot of problems with Laurens. He wonders if he tried to hit John with all of them at this moment. would he do so based on priority or would he sort them alphabetically. 

He settles on a scoff for now and shoulders past the other man to enter the bathroom and start getting ready for bed. 

Laurens waits until he hears the click of the lock on the bathroom door to loosen his now tensed shoulders. He rolls them back a couple times, tilts his head to crack his neck and eventually finds himself seated at his desk.

He’d had such a great evening with Burr, Madison and Jefferson. The four of them had gone to a nearby bar. None of them were old enough to drink yet but they got some food and soda and spent hours talking about their course, hometowns and such. 

They all came from similar political backgrounds and as they cycled through stories of events and meetings they’d be dragged to; they’d come to realise they had all been in the same room more than once. They’d just never seemed to hang out as the four of them. 

Their conversation did slip to political talk at times, but Burr was as smooth as ever at deflecting any personal opinions he was asked for. He also helped John avoid answering any. John might know Madison longer and better than the other two, but he wasn’t sure how much Madison knew about his relationship with his father. What he did know is both their fathers were close and he wasn’t sure he trusted his friend with his liberal secret just yet.

Laurens had gotten a chance to know Jefferson a bit better as well. The man knew a lot about the college and the surrounding spots to visit, having been here a year himself. John had heard of the man before, he comes from one of the wealthiest families in America after all, but he’d never actually had a conversation with him. He was hard to put into words. A little arrogant, a little cocky, a bit much for Laurens taste when it came to friends. But overall, he didn’t seem like a malicious guy. Or maybe Laurens had just gotten on his good side.

His evening of forming friendships however, had come to an abrupt end as soon as he entered the hostile aura of his own bedroom. He could still feel the tension radiating from Hamilton through the bathroom door. 

John’s halfway through booting up his laptop and typing out an update to his discord friends when Alex storms back into the room. He’s dressed in a worn t-shirt and some pajama bottoms and as soon as Laurens registers he’s looking at Alex, he quickly diverts his attention back to the text. He’s content to ignore the other man for the rest of the night.

Alex grabs his own laptop to work on but decides to sit on his bed instead. He feels more secure with his back against the wall and John in his peripheral vision. Not that it matters much because as soon as Alex gets typing up a new speech he’s working on for one of the opening topics for the first meeting of the debating club, the world around him melts away. 

It gets to about one in the morning before John’s tired eyes can’t keep up with his own typing. Unknown to the two men, they were both working on a speech for the debating meet. But after the last two or so hours of research and work, the words on John’s screen have started to swap and twist and blur as they always ended up doing. He knows he won’t get anything more done tonight. 

He leaves to use the bathroom and Alex doesn’t even twitch in acknowledgement. Whatever he was working on. He seems enraptured by it. John washes and strips down to his boxes. He feels a slight moment of awkwardness about sleeping like this around someone who in a day has become an enemy to him, but he was used to sleeping like this. He wasn’t about to give up his comfort for this jerk.

Alex is startled out of his concluding paragraph by a click going off beside him. It takes his tunnel-vision mind a moment to register it’s the sound of a lamp being turned off. He glances to the side and realises Lauren’s had gotten into bed and is laying with his back to Alex.

He hadn’t said anything about Alex having his own light on, or the loud clicking sounds Alex is making from typing as quickly as he does on his laptop. Maybe it was pride or something, but Alex had a feeling Laurens would rather lie there for hours than ask Alex to knock it off.

A grin spreads across Hamilton’s face at the thought. If he was going to win over administration and get his roommate swapped, he’d need Laurens to be as desperate to move out as Hamilton was to see him leave. What better place to start than making it difficult for the man to sleep?

As Hamilton writes up the end of his essay, he clicks open a new tab. He had been planning to just go to sleep but now with a goal set in front of him, he starts writing a second debate at full throttle. His hands not pausing in their slaughter against his loud and clicking keyboard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the kudos, comments and bookmarks! I'm writing this for fun but seeing those numbers go up really motivates me! It's comforting to know all the hours I'm spending writing are being enjoyed by someone out there :)
> 
> Also sorry if the plot/pace is a bit slow. I wasn't lying when I said slow burn in the tags. I have so many juicy and long chapters planned, but I want to build these characters up first. I hope you guys can stick with me until then :)


	4. Lecture Battle #1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note: None of the opinions in this story are necessarily a reflection of my own. Some of the arguments in this chapter come from a want of turmoil between characters and are not my own personal thoughts on everything mentioned <3

John wasn’t sure how he made it through orientation week. 

It should have been fine. It was a week he spent exploring the campus with Burr, Madison and Jefferson. They narrowed down the best places to eat, the best places to hang out and the quietest spots to study in. It would have been the best-case scenario start of the college year for John, if he just hadn’t been so goddamn tired throughout it.

Night in his too small dorm had become hell on earth. John had thought himself to be quite the night owl, but that was before he’d met Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton refused to switch off any earlier than three in the morning. His personal best was 5:30am, light had started peaking through the curtains at that stage! 

He’s nearly certain at his point that Hamilton is actually nocturnal. If John has to listen to the clicking of the man’s keyboard one more night, he knows he’ll go insane. Or at the very least, he’ll toss his roommates laptop out the window. 

“It’s unbearable Burr! I can’t even block it out. It’s so sporadic, so insistent and loud and the noise itself is the very essence of how annoying Hamilton is.” John lets out all his pent-up frustration at his friend as they head to their first class of the college year. The class being psychology. 

The class was apparently very easy to pass, but extremely hard to get top honours in. The lecturer was meant to be incredible but hard to impress. The lecturer expected to be blown away by a student before they’d reward them high marks. 

John could already feel the uphill battle for top of the class beginning. He was determined to make a good first impression today with the lecturer. He mightn’t know much about the subject, but according to most lawyers, psychology could be the key to becoming one of the top lawyers in America. To know how the mind of not only the person you’re defending works, but also how the minds of the jury works, is meant to be crucial to winning the tougher cases. 

“You could just ask him to switch off” Burr reminds him, as they turn across a green that lies just outside the lecture hall that their lecture will be in.

John scoffs before responding “Yeah that’s just what he wants. To know he’s getting under my skin. No, I won’t give him the satis-” the last word is lost as John breaks into a yawn. 

Burr gives him a very pointed look in response, Laurens can only scowl half-heartedly back.

“I am not backing down”

“Pride is a dangerous thing.” Aaron comments, “So is sleep deprivation” 

“Is Hamilton still keeping your ass up?” As usual Jefferson bounces into step beside them, his presence only being noticed by him jumping into the conversation. “Man, I wouldn’t have put up with this shit if he had been my roommate”

“What are you even doing this side of campus Thomas. You don’t take any lectures in this hall” Burr questions, as always he masterfully steers the conversation away from the heated debate it was about to become. 

“Oh, I couldn’t miss out on George’s first lecture. The look on your faces should be quality entertainment.” Laurens wasn’t sure how he felt about the excited look etched across Jefferson’s face.

“Is he that bad?” He couldn’t help but ask.

“Bad? Nah, he’s more eccentric than anything. Not really a man you expect to see in academia” 

As Thomas starts to rant about the workload this lecturer dishes out, Laurens spots Hamilton and Lafayette heading towards the entrance of the building. He’d sort of forgotten his roommate would be in a lot of the same classes as John. Hopefully Alexander wouldn’t be as talkative in class as he was… well practically everywhere else.

The trio make it through the doors maybe thirty seconds behind the other two, John notices the pair head to the front seats near the right side of the room. So, when Burr asks where they want to sit, Laurens makes a bee line for the left-hand side, a hand full of seats from the front.

The room slowly begins to fill up as students trickle in from the numerous entrances to the lecture hall. The hall was large, but it wasn’t one of the biggest on campus. It didn’t have a balcony or anything extravagant like some of the ones John had been in for his orientation briefs. The room probably had the capacity to fill 300-400 people and it was broken into a right side, middle and left side. With most of the population of the room being seated in the middle. 

At first students seem to flock either to the very back rows, or for the more eager ones, the very front. It takes until the lecture is only minutes from starting before the middle starts to fill out. This is also when Madison shows up and takes the last free seat on their row beside Jefferson. By the time the grey-haired lecturer enters through a door behind the lecture podium, the room is packed and buzzing with noise.

The sounds of chatter, zipping bags and clicking laptops all cease however, as soon as the man clears his throat noisily through the mic on the podium.

“Welcome students, to PSCH1100, or as most of you will refer to is as, psychology. I’ll be your lecturer for this semester, you may refer to me as George or Mr Frederick.” The strong British accent is certainly a surprise to Laurens, but the accent is easily out shadowed by the nervous mannerisms and crazy eyes this lecturer was making. It looks to John as though the man had downed one too many coffees before starting this lecture.

George goes on to explain the concepts they’ll be studying, the case studies they’ll look at and how their credits will be allocated for the module. Most of the grade would be made up of online tests that will need to be done bi-weekly, a Christmas multiple choice question exam they’ll have to do and an essay project that will have to be completed in pairs. Laurens and Burr reflexively glance at each other as they hear that news, at least he’ll have a partner covered. 

Most of the lecture passes by without incident. George is simply breaking down the core of what they’ll be studying with relatively boring power point slides and uninteresting diagrams. It’s not until there’s only about ten minutes left that the lecturer decides to open the room to a question.

“One of most important things in life is impressions. How our minds relate information on how someone looks, what they do and where they come from and then forms an opinion on that person. So, my question to you bright eyed starting college students, what is the psychology behind an impression? How should we judge someone off basic information and how long should an impression last as we get to know a person?” He flourishes the end of his question with a wave of his hands, indicating for the students in the room to speak up. 

At first, it’s met with silence, Laurens can feel the nervous energy of a room where some people want to answer but feel constrained by social means to not say anything. John wanted to answer, but he was finding the question difficult to break down. He had lots of opinions on first impressions, especially after his own first impression with Hamilton less than a week ago. He just didn’t know where to begin.

“C’mon now gen Z, don’t be so shy” The lecturer almost mocks the room for their silence. Just as Laurens can feel his hand twitch to rise up, he notices someone stand up in his peripheral vision. 

“First impressions are unavoidable sir, it’s not just a question of how should we judge people, it’s a question of how do we? Studies have already been done that prove our brains have the ability to judge someone in less than one tenth of a second. So, a first impression really is inevitable. It’s breaking down what we are judging them for in that one tenth of a second that’s really important. In that short amount of time, it’s not their job, personality or background we’re noticing. It’s their skin colour; their attractiveness; their gender; even the colour of their eyes, that’s what we’re noticing. Then, first impressions become a lot less about what we’re judging and more about what we’ve been brought up to believe about these features. A racist will always get a similar impression of someone with dark skin, as will a sexist with a person’s sex and gender. Most of those people won’t even believe they have a choice with that impression, it’ll already have been ingrained in them. After that it becomes a matter of backgrounds and compatibility. A wealthy person may judge someone if they say their job is as a cleaner, thinking less of them, whereas an unemployed person might find it extremely impressive the cleaner even has a job. That’s when impressions become about perspective and one’s own experience.” John finds himself annoyingly impressed with the level of confidence radiating off Hamilton as he speaks. The man doesn’t even seem to take a breath as he hammers out his words and gets his points across.

George is giving him an impressed grin at this point, the lecturer is sitting on the edge of his table with his legs crossed, he’s fully leaning forward at this point, beaming at Hamilton. 

“An interesting and passionate point Mr-”

“Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton”

“An interesting and passionate point Mr Alexander Hamilton, anyone care to refute it for the last few minutes of class? Or add to it?”

As Hamilton sits down looking smug across the room, John feels himself stand before he’s even planned the first sentence of his response. 

“I have to disagree sir, there’s a lot more to a first impression than first sight of someone. Sure, we can argue we have an idea of someone based on how they look in the first second we see them, but that’s nothing more than relating a vision of someone with information we already have. We might like someone because their smile reminds us of a loved one or hate someone because they have the same hairstyle as someone we despise, but that’s a moment of thought, rather than a full-fledged impression. A first impression is more than a single thought, many people who have studied this topic claim we make more than one first impression within the first minute of meeting a person. To go off Mr Hamilton’s example, a racist might judge someone based off their skin colour or accent, but if that person they’re judging is a doctor that’s just after saving their life, then their first impression of them might be over shadowed by that heroism and race can be forgotten. Their first impression could be a positive one. There’s more to people than meets the eye and even people set up by different backgrounds and experiences to hate one another, can end up with good impressions of one another, depending on the circumstances of their meeting.”

John finds himself on the receiving end up a fiery glare from his roommate, who had stood up once again during John’s speech. Their lecturer seems delighted by the discourse in the class and is flicking his head from Laurens to Hamilton during John’s rant.

“So, your argument then is, all someone needs to do to make a good first impression is to save someone’s life? Is that meant to be the cure for prejudice, racism and sexism then?” Alexander questions him, not giving the lecturer time to react to John’s comments.

“I never said it cured anything, I was simply using an exaggerated scenario to refute your own particular example and show how your approach to a first impression isn’t a full proof ideology that can be stuck on everyone and their experiences” John shoots back, noticing the faces of the student between Hamilton and himself were a mixture of joy, shock and a fumbling for phones to record the moment.  
“And what ‘particular example’ would that be? Do you mean me referring to the immeasurable accounts of racism found in nearly every job interview?” 

“Sorry maybe I missed that example when you were ranting without pause, I was more referring to the rich and poor example you gave. As if people in different income jobs always judge each other so harshly. Also, it’s funny to me how you take the well sung opinion that the rich will immediately look down on someone earning less than them. What about those who work low income jobs that curse and rant about people who worked their asses off, whether it was through a college degree or through being an entrepreneur and is now someone they think they get to criticise because they’re jealous how other people outworked them in life and now have nicer things” 

Jefferson was almost flying out of his seat as he hollered out a low ‘oooh’ that seemed to echo around the room as multiple students started breaking out into chatter and commenting on the scene in front of them. Madison has to hold his friend back from hopping off his seat and onto the floor. Burr was giving John a mix of an impressed and disappointed look; he wasn’t sure what it meant but he guessed he’d find out after the lecture.

Before Alex could retort back, the clench in his jaw showing he had a lot more to say on the subject, George cut across them.

“Well well, what a show on our first day ladies, gentlemen and the rest. Thank you, Mr Hamilton, thank you Mr”

“Laurens, John Laurens” John fills in for the man as he looks to him.

“Yes, thank you both of you for your display of a passionate psychology debate. We shall open up our next lecture speaking about some of the great points both you fellows made today!” With that the lecturer lets out a giddy laugh to himself as he, along with the rest of the room, begin to pack up their stuff. 

“Damn John! I didn’t know you had it in you!” Jefferson is beaming as he starts playfully punching John’s shoulder and chest.

“Quite an impressive debate” Madison adds as he starts to ascend the stairs out of the hall.

“I couldn’t just sit there and listen to him sprout nonsense” John explains, not sure how to react to their compliments.

“I would have shut him up if I was actually taking this module” Jefferson comments, throwing a look over to where Lafayette and Hamilton were making their way up the parallel set of steps. Hamilton was in full ranting mode to his friend, no doubt about John.

“Burr what did you think?” Jefferson asks their silent friend as they make it into the fresh air.

“I thought you both made impressive points” Burr replies, after a moment of hesitation.

“But?” John pushes, a smile on his face. He’d noticed in the last few days that Burr could be slow to give his opinion on matters.

Burr shrugs, apparently at a loss for how to put his thoughts into words. “I’m not sure debating him was the best idea. Now he knows most of your points and can tear into you at the next lecture. If you’d let him keep ranting, you would have known all the cards up his sleeve.”

“Ohh, the silent sniper approach huh Burr? Didn’t think you were so into scheming” Jefferson taunts as he hops a step ahead of the rest of them, still buzzing from the spectacle. 

“I just think sometimes it’s better to talk less and listen more”

“Burr makes a good point” Madison agrees “However, what you did in there was also a good move. You gave a room of students another perspective to view from. You planted doubt in their heads about Hamilton’s ideas. You’d make a fine politician if you’d any interest in it John”

The comment gets a snort out of Laurens “I think I’ll use my power of persuasion on juries instead of hot-headed politicians.”

Burr changes the conversation after that to where they should eat, and the group make their way to a nearby café for some lunch. 

\----------------------------

“-and then he has the nerve to-”

“Alright, okay I get it. Shit went down in psychology today.” Mulligans interrupts Hamilton, waving his half-eaten burger at him “Now can I enjoy the rest of my burger without another rant from you about Laurens”

“If you’d been there, you’d be just as worked up!” Alex defends, crossing his arms and pouting on the other side of the table.

Lafayette lets out a low hum of approval as he swallows some fries “He came across as _trés_ entitled.”

Alex nods his head in affirmation as Hercules looks about ready to leave the pair to their groaning. 

“Just rip into him the next day and for the moment be done with it.” Hercules begs, in a last attempt to move the conversation on.

“Oh, I plan on it” Hamilton smirks, smiling for the first time since he sat down for lunch.

“You know, if you let the man sleep as well, he mightn’t be as irritable.” Mulligans points out as he sips at his soda.

“What, and ruin my plan to have him begging to leave our room? Not a chance. I have him on the ropes, give him a week tops and he’ll be sleep deprived enough to fight the clerk in the administration building” Alex argues. 

Alex's late-night work had been draining his own internal battery and he could feel the candle burning at both ends as he over worked himself to almost a point of madness. But it would all be worth it once Laurens was rooming with some other sorry sucker.

“So, what is the plan for tonight gentlemen? Hercules and I have lectures until four, Hamilton you’ll be done at five. I say we do something special to celebrate out first proper day of college” Lafayette says to his two friends, swiftly changing the topic.

“Special? Sure, but no more drinking. Not after Saturday night. I do not want a hangover on the second day” Hercules complains, shoveling fries into his mouth.

“You didn’t have to drink that much” Hamilton laughs, he’d only had two or three drinks himself. He was way too focused on doing well in college right now and holding onto his scholarship to relax enough to get drunk. 

“Yes _mon ami_ , you were quite intoxicated” Lafayette teases.

“As if you’re were much better!” Hercules retorts, “I remember enough of the night to remember lugging your ass back to our room” 

Lafayette sputters indignantly. “Well you remember wrong; it was I who carried you home” 

They both turn their head to the now cackling Hamilton.

“What’s so funny Hams?” 

“ _Oui_ , please enlighten us”

“You two” Hamilton manages to get out between bouts of laughter “You’re both right. You carried each other back to the room, all handsy and cosy like”

The pairs eyes both widen as a blush creeps across both their faces.

“ _Pas moyen_!”

“As if!”

Hamilton just shakes his head at the now obviously not looking at each other pair. Damn his friends were clueless. 

“Whatever you guys say. Anyways, I am heading off to my next lecture. Text into the group chat any plans you two lover boys come up with” He has to focus to dodge the fries that are tossed at him as he makes a hasty escape. He’d pushed some buttons there. Still maybe it’ll help those two get a clue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments on the last chapter! Honestly so glad so many people are enjoying the story I'm telling :D 
> 
> Translation for Pas Moyen - No way! (Translation found online as a way of translating this phrase. Sorry if it's incorrect, There were a few translations but for my understanding this worked the best)


	5. Let The War begin

“He’s doing it on purpose?” Laurens is pretty sure he’s seeing red right now. His hands have curled into quivering fists by his sides as he does his best to contain his anger.

“I’m afraid so. He was bragging about it to his friends over at the burger stop” Madison informs him.

Madison had been standing in line to get some fries to go when he heard Hamilton and his gang talking about Hamilton keeping Laurens up. He’d just gotten there in time to hear that part of their conversation.

“I’m going to kill him” John decides, standing up from his half-eaten panini. 

“I’ll help” Jefferson declares, hopping to his feet with a sly grin on his face.

“Gentlemen calm down” Burr pleas, pushing away his finished meal. “You’re hardly going to fight the guy. Do you both want to be suspended, or worse, expelled from this place?”

John grimaces at the thought. His dad would not only kill him, but the media would definitely catch wind of it. He’d be followed around by paparazzi for weeks.

“I’m not going to actually touch him. Just confront him on it” John defends, although he’d easily punch the bastard if he was goaded enough. 

“Sure” Burr says through an almost too sincere smile. “Although he could just go on the defensive and play it off as if you’re paranoid. It’s his word versus Madison’s.”

“Are you calling Madison a liar?” Jefferson challenges, flopping back into his seat with crossed arms.

“Of course not. But Hamilton will.” Burr explains.

“Well what do you propose John does then?” Madison enquires. 

“Now that you know it’s on purpose, you can always hit back with your own… retaliation” Burr suggests, a determined glint in his eye.

“Now you’re talking” Jefferson beams, leaning his elbows on the table and leaning himself across it. “Payback is a bitch”

John smirks at his friends and their antics. It warms him to know he’s got these guys at his back. Now time for some sweet revenge on his roommate.

\---------------------------------------------

Hamilton hums softly under his breath as he makes it up the winding staircase and onto the landing of his floor. It’s nearly midnight now and he can feel the heaviness of fatigue on his feet as he trudges down the corridor.

He’d spent his evening over in one of the other dormitory buildings with the Schuyler sisters and his friends. Lafayette and Hercules wave him off at the second floor where their room is, and he makes the rest of the journey alone.

He feels the usual tendril of reluctance tighten in his stomach as he opens his dorm door. He really didn’t want to face John, didn’t want to have to look at the man after their head to head today in class.

John might have made some decent points, but he completed ignored the severity of the racist and sexist issues in most first impressions. How someone can be labelled as useless; a criminal, or many other worse things based on those two aspects of a person. 

Of course, someone as privileged and brainwashed as Laurens would never be able to empathise with such ideals. The man had probably never had to so much as lift a finger to get what he wanted in life.

It’s perhaps that last thought crossing Alexanders mind that leads him to shove the door open with a bit more force than intended. It hits off his wardrobe with an audible bang. He looks around the room to see if he startled his roommate but to Hamilton’s surprise, the room is empty.

His eyes flick over to check the bathroom, but the door is open and the light inside it is turned off. Looks like Laurens was having a night out himself. 

Despite wanting nothing more than to get some sleep, Alexander decides to start writing up an essay he’d been given today for his English module and gets himself comfortable on his bed.

He notices the time again around one in the morning. As usual he’d gotten completely lost in his work and he looks around the room a bit dazed, only to realise that John hadn’t returned yet.

Probably found some girl to hook up with and went off somewhere with her. Not unexpected going off John’s aura of confidence, but the thought leaves a bitter taste in Alex’s mouth. Maybe he’s just stressed his roommate will bring her back to their room.

Wherever he is, come 1am Hamilton decides John wasn’t going to be sleeping in their room tonight and decides he’d let himself get a good night’s rest for once. He drifts off to sleep within seconds of his head hitting the pillow.

At first, he’s disorientated as he wakes up. Mainly because the room was still dark. There was no light creeping through the curtains and yet his eyes were forcing themselves to look around the room. A low beeping can be heard…somewhere. Where exactly? Hamilton isn’t sure. But it’s what woke him.

He groggily reaches for his phone to turn off whatever alarm he’d messed up when he set one. Except there’s no alarm going off on his phone. His lock screen is void of any notification and all he can see is the large print clock telling him it’s half two in the morning. He flicks his head around to try catch where the sound is coming from only to realise whatever it is has stopped.

He shakes his head in confusion but guesses the sound could have been coming from another room just a wall over. Maybe someone else had messed up their alarm? Either way, Alexander is back asleep within the next two minutes.

This time he’s woken up not even ten minutes later, at ten to three, to the same beeping. This cycle continues two more times until it’s half three in the morning. 

He throws the blanket back off himself and begins scouring the room for any light source that might indicate where the noise was coming from. As usual, after less than a minute the irritating sound stops.

This time though Hamilton takes a weary seat on his desk chair and keeps his ears pricked for any noise. After fourteen minutes the sound goes off again. It’s coming from Laurens side of the room. 

He takes a moment to look around and press his ear against the desk before he realises it’s coming from John’s wardrobe. He tries to open it to see what’s making the noise, only to realise the handles on the wardrobes, which are two silver handles that are shaped like hallow boxes, have a bike lock wrapped through them. 

Hamilton tried for several minutes to fiddle with the lock but quickly realised there was no way for him to open it. The room goes silent again and Alex starts to think of ways he could break the lock off.

That’s when he realises, that whatever is going on, Laurens purposely made this difficult for him to get to. Who on earth puts a bike lock on their wardrobe doors? The bastard put the alarm in them to fuck with him. He must have figured out what Alexander was doing.

Well just because that bastard is too much of a coward to confront Alexander about his attempts to rid his dorm of Laurens, doesn’t mean Alexander is. 

He grabs his key from his desk, slips on some sweatpants so he’s more decently dressed, and marches out of his room. The hallway is dark bar some light shining from the staircase that seems to stay on all night. All the rooms on the floor are silent. Everyone was either fast asleep or still partying somewhere. Alexander moves almost silently in his bare feet as he pads down the hallway

He heads to Burr’s room first. There’re only two rooms in the building Laurens is likely to be in, if he is in the building that is.

He knocks loudly on the door, not caring at this point if he wakes anyone innocent up. After a few seconds of silence, a moment of thumping feet across carpet and a quiet “Who the fuck is knocking?”, a disgruntled Burr in boxers opens the door looking confused.

Damn, Burr mightn’t be his type, but Alex can appreciate the sculpted man before him… and no, no, absolutely not the time to drool over someone. 

“Where’s Laurens” Hamilton questions, cutting straight to the chase.

Burr leans tiredly against the doorframe and raises an eyebrow in response.

“I don’t know Alexander, isn’t he your roommate?”

“Oh, cut the crap Burr. He’s in there isn’t he” Hamilton tries to peek over Burr’s shoulder but all he spots in the room is Burr’s actual roommate. 

“He’s not actually” Burr smirks, swinging his door smugly open to show Hamilton the empty floor. “If anyone should be cutting the crap, don’t you think it should be you?”

Before Alex can bite back with a retort, Burr shuts the door in his face. Well that narrows down the number of places to one.

Hamilton turns on his heels and makes a bee line to the staircase. Madison and Jefferson roomed on the second floor, just around the corner from Lafayette and Mulligans.

His hand is banging on the door within a minute and he waits, tapping his foot on the carpeted floor beneath him as the door swings open.

A grinning Jefferson opens the door and half steps out of the room, keeping the door mostly shut behind him.

“Alexander, a knock on my door this late? Careful, wouldn’t want any of our neighbours to think you came here to ravish me” 

Hamilton is impressed he doesn’t throw a punch at the guy. Another conservative making a homophobic joke. Hilarious.

“Where’s Laurens” 

“Who?” Jefferson says, blinking his eyelashes in an exaggerated matter as he badly attempts to play dumb.

“John, John Laurens. You know the asshole you hang out with, about way high?” Hamilton gestures to a height slightly above his head.

“Ah, that Laurens. Yes, I know him well! He’s not here.” At the end of his sentence Jefferson’s grinning face falls and he goes from grinning at Alexander to glaring.

One look at Jefferson’s tense body language and the fact that the much taller man was using his larger body to block the door tells Alexander otherwise.

“Sure he’s not. Is that why you’re going all bodyguard on the door?” Hamilton quizzes, waiting for the right moment to launch past the man.

“Madison sleeps naked, wouldn’t want his decency to be ruined with your wandering eyes”

The comment hits Hamilton like a slap, now he’s pissed. Just because he was also interested in men he now has to deal with all this over the top bullshit from Laurens and his southern pals. 

“What? Wary to share your boyfriend Thomas?” The comment shocks Jefferson enough for Hamilton to barrel past him and leave him spluttering in the doorway. A very disgruntled Laurens turns from where he had been sleeping on his side in a sleeping bag on the floor and groans as he notices Hamilton’s silhouette in the doorway. 

“Get out of my room” Jefferson cries at the same moment that Laurens sits up with a tired but smug grin on his face.

“What, something keeping you up Hamilton? Have to come mess with other people’s rooms now too?” 

Alexander wouldn’t think himself an overly aggressive person, but he was more than willing to punch Laurens at this moment if it wiped the look off his face. 

“Open your fucking bike lock” Alex seethes through gritted teeth.

“Or what?” John yawns, standing up and towering the stupid two inches above Alex. He can now feel Jefferson’s presence on his back just a foot away. “Don’t like a taste of your own medicine Hamilton? Maybe don’t talk about your scheming plans in public next time?”

Shit, someone must have overheard Alex today at the burger stop when he was boasting to Lafayette and Mulligans. Sometimes he maybe did speak a bit too much.

“You turn that alarm off and I’ll knock it off” Hamilton concedes. He was ready to admit he’d been called out and bested.

“Sounds like a compromise. Yet, I’m the one winning tonight” Laurens smirks, Jefferson lets out a chuckle in the background as Madison groans for everyone to go the fuck to sleep.

“Why don’t you toddle back to bed Alex? You’re keeping us all up.” John speaks to him like Alex is some kind of child, even using his first name for once. Hamilton isn’t expecting this level of audacity from John.

“I’m not leaving until you shut that shit up” Alex warns, crossing his arms and leveling his strongest glare at the jaw locked Laurens.

It probably wasn’t the smartest move to be this close to John when both looked ready to take a swing. Alexander might have some history with rough housing with people and living in a dangerous neighbourhood where you had to be ready for someone to pounce on you at all times. 

But John had him clearly beat in height and in build. As painful as it was for Hamilton to admit, John would be able to pack a punch. He was an exercise maniac most evenings in their room and his toned arms, shoulders and six pack clearly demonstrated that. 

Just as Hamilton thinks the scene might turn into either a boxing ring or an awkward standoff, he feels two hands grab the back of his t-shirt and with unexpected strength he is ripped backwards. The surprise manoeuvre is enough to send him toppling backwards and he lands hard on his ass out in hall.

“Night Alexander” Jefferson beams as he shuts the door in his face, the sly fucker had been the one to man handle him. The last thing he sees over Jefferson’s shoulder is a laughing Laurens going for a high five with the man. What a prick.

He picks himself up off the floors and steadily decides he is not going back to his room with that disgusting alarm still there. Instead he makes his way around the corner and knocks on the boy’s room. 

After a few attempts Mulligans opens the door.

“Alex what’s wrong? What the hell are you-?” He doesn’t give his friend time to wake up or process that Alex looks livid. He just brushes past him muttering in an annoyed voice.

“I’m sleeping here tonight”

He pulls back the blanket on Lafayette’s bed and gently pushes his somewhat half-brother over. This wasn’t the first time he’d shared a bed with the French man.

“Another nightmare _mon petit lion_?” Lafayette mumbles, clearly only on the brink of consciousness as he makes room for Alex and gently drops an arm over the smaller man’s side. 

Mulligans drops back into his bed but gives a wary glance at the other two. Almost as if he was unsure if he should try comfort Alex or not.

Mulligans has been Lafayette’s and Alex’s friend since their final year of high school, and they’d all been excited to be going to the same college together. Still, sometimes Alex forgets that Lafayette and himself lived together for three years. There is some things that comes second nature to the pair that can leave Mulligan feeling like he is in the deep end of something he’s unfamiliar with.

“No Laf. I’ll explain everything in the morning” He makes sure to catch Mulligans gaze as he says that. He wants to make it clear that they’ll both be included in that. Mulligan just gives him an anxious nod as he lays his head back down on the pillow to try sleep.

Lafayette responds by mumbling something incoherent into the back of Alex’s neck as his friend nuzzles into Alex’s back and promptly falls asleep gently clutching onto Alex.

The contact is refreshing and warm and it cools off Hamilton’s rage a little as he tries to settle his mind and get some sleep. He has plenty ideas for revenge already forming in his mind. He just needs to wait until the morning when he has more energy to start actually piecing them together. 

Laurens might have won the battle of sleep tonight. But Alexander Hamilton was going to win the war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry this chapter is a bit shorter than the rest :( I felt bad that I didn't quite reach 3k on it. I'm trying to aim for 4k as much as possible. But once I had this much written it felt forced to write any more scenes for this chapter. 
> 
> I'll be a bit busier this week so sorry uploads will be more scarce! It'll likely only be Wednesday and the weekend I'll actually get to upload again. 
> 
> Thanks again for all your lovely comments! Also nearly 100 kudos! I'm blown away by your guys love <3


	6. Anger Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

After the alarm clock incident, tension between the roommates only worsened. It only takes a week for their rivalry to become infamous around the dorms. Every day is met with a held breath as the pair both try and work out what scheme the other has been up to.

Most of schemes are childish and cliché, but still very effective when it comes to pissing one other off. Take for example, the morning after the alarm clock event, Hamilton made sure to get up early and sneak back into their room. 

He took his own bike lock out of his bag, unlike some rich jerks he had to cycle to get places, and he looped it through Laurens wardrobe handles, securely locking it. Now the asshole wouldn’t be able to get any of his shit without finding a way to break the lock first, or if he was to get the key. Which Hamilton pocketed smugly in his jacket. 

To say John was not amused, was an understatement. Hamilton had been wise enough to make himself scarce so once John had figured out what his roommate had done, his only option was to find a way to break the damn thing. Which had led to a thirty-minute search, dressed in the previous day’s rumpled outfit, to find a janitor who had the tools to snap the bike lock in half. 

He ended up being twenty minutes late to his corporate law lecture. What added insult to injury was the satisfied look Hamilton gave him across the lecture hall when he saw John tip toe in with a scowl plastered on his face. 

Lauren’s revenge for the prank had taken two days to both come up with and orchestrate. He’d been busy settling into lectures and he’d attended his first creative drawing class during that time.

He’d been dismayed to notice Lafayette had also decided to join the club, but bar the odd glare at one another, they both kept to themselves. John had managed to get friendly with two girls that went to the class and the three of them set up their stations in a distant corner to Lafayette. 

John’s revenge also required access to Hamilton’s laptop. That particular hurdle was bypassed when Alex was thoughtless enough to leave his laptop unlocked on his desk when he decided to go shower before bed. It only took John two minutes of fiddling through settings to find what he wanted.

All he had to do then was crawl innocently into bed. Luckily, Hamilton was not able to read Spanish and he spent ten minutes cursing at John as he tried to figure out how to switch his computer’s main language back to English. John held in most of his laughter, although hearing Hamilton listening to a YouTube video on how to fix it brought him pretty close to hysterics. 

The pranks went back and forth for the first two weeks of college without much confrontation. They cursed and yelled at one another from time to time but neither of them went far enough to cause the other person to actually bow out or beg for it to be over. Their friends though could see the blowout coming. 

“John, not that I’m saying the brat doesn’t deserve it, but aren’t you getting a bit tired with all the prank planning; all the set up and all the shit you’ve had thrown at you?” Jefferson questions John. He asks him this after John shows up late for lunch with the usual crew. John had gotten delayed after Hamilton replaced his shampoo with slime and John had spent an extra fifteen minutes in the shower trying to get the crap out.

“I can’t let him win” John defends, unwrapping the pre-made sandwich he’d picked up by the counter. 

“Would you call the last two weeks a win for you?” Burr throws back, sipping on his usual latte coffee. 

John thinks back to how on edge he’s been since the prank war with Hamilton had begun. He’ll admit he’d rather not have to worry or stress about what he’ll find messed with next. But the adrenaline he got from pulling off his own pranks, accompanied with Hamilton’s fury… that made it worth it.

“I’ve had my wins.” John argues.

“and your losses.” Madison cuts in. 

If Madison is joining in with ganging up against John, it probably meant the situation was getting out of hand.

“Look, he’s not going to keep this up all semester. We’re both too busy for that. I just need to make sure I get the final word.” Laurens explains. If only the rest could understand how much Alex got under his skin, how annoying he was to room with.

After being called out for keeping John up, Alex had started to go to bed earlier. Although John suspects that had more to do with the dark circles under Hamilton’s own eyes. Also, earlier was a word he’d only use in the context of Hamilton. The man still didn’t switch off for bed until near one in the morning. Which wouldn’t be so late if the pair didn’t usually have class at nine the next day. 

Hamilton was also a slob. He left dirty clothes in a pile in front of his wardrobe for nearly the full first two weeks they were rooming. Only washing them when he realised he had run out of clean ones to wear. 

His desk was always a mess of empty coffee cups, half eaten takeout and an assortment of papers; notepads and books. Whenever the clutter got too bad there, he’d move some of it to his bedside locker.

Successfully stinking up the room to a point where John had to keep a window open, and eventually he’d have to snap at Alex to clean some of it up. 

“You better make your final word something big then. Something that either gets him moving out of the dorms completely, or just flat out ignoring you for the rest of semester” Jefferson comments. His eyes get distant as he speaks, as though various ideas of gags and tricks were running through his head. 

“Both outcomes sound pretty good to me” John mutters, biting into his food as his friends move on to speaking about debate club. 

The first two weeks had just been workshops on how to debate properly, the rules of the different competitions and demonstrations by the veterans, Jefferson and Angelica to name a few. Starting next week though, they’d start doing open debates. Jefferson also gave them the insider knowledge that the third and fourth years that run the club would be keeping an eye out for students they could pick for their competitive teams.

Jefferson explains that there’s a few competitions on throughout both semesters and that they usually build the teams to suit the competitions. Some teams require the members to do lots of research for the debate and to do lots of building and constructing of bomb proof arguments. Whereas other competitions only revealed the topic on the day, minutes before the debate started. Teams going to those events had to be quick on their feet and have strong opinions on numerous topics. 

Whichever team they thought him best for, John was determined to make a name for himself and to compete for the college. He felt he had a good chance with a guy like Jefferson helping him out.

\------------------------

“Aren’t you getting sick of these games yet _mon petit lion_?” Lafayette groans into his arms as he lays half sprawled across the table.

Alex doesn’t answer him at first as his hand dances across a half-written page, his pen scrawling hasty sentences and wobbly sketches as he formulates his next attack on Laurens.

“Tired of what?” He asks, after he takes the moment of silence to mean that he’d been the one asked a question. 

“Obsessing over John Laurens” Mulligan answers, his gaze focused on the jeans he was repairing for Eliza. She’s almost cried with happiness when he’d offered to stitch up the inner lining when they ripped on her the day before.

“I’m not obsessing. I’m plotting” Hamilton corrects his friends as he leans back to stare at his blueprints. 

“Outside of schoolwork, clubs and the odd bout of social behaviour, your every waking moment is literally spent scheming or complaining about this guy. He’s taking over your life” Mulligan presses on, his eyes darting upwards to catch Alex’s reaction. 

Hamilton opens his mouth to argue, to point out just how wrong his friends are to badger him about this. But he can’t help but see where they’re coming from. 

Of course, they just don’t understand. They only have to see Lauren’s annoying face during the day. When he’s across lecture halls, slouching in the far corner of the room at clubs they attend with him, or they see him briefly as he passes them in the hallways on campus. Alex has to spend hours with the guy in a confined small room.

He was an annoying roommate too. Always pestering him about the smallest messes or bits of rubbish. As if Alex could focus on messes around him when he’s trying to write masterpieces for his assignments. Laurens just didn’t get what it meant to have to work hard.

Also, there was plenty Alex could give out to Laurens about if he had the energy. The hair clogs in the shower, the nauseating scent of his cologne he layered on himself in the morning or the fact he would spend hours of the week exercising in their room, stinking up the small area with the stench of his sweat. 

No. The others couldn’t begin to understand what Alex had to go through with his roommate. These pranks were the only way to get Laurens away from Alex and out of his immediate life. 

“One more” Alex promises, grinning at the plan in front of him “If this doesn’t send him running to administration to complain, I don’t know what will.”

He’s so enthralled with his own work he doesn’t notice the concerned glance his friends share. They both seemed to be thinking the same thing. 

Dear God don’t let him go _too far_ with this. 

\--------------------------------

Hamilton himself was having similar thoughts the next day on his way to his dorm. He had a plan. A scheme to top all the one’s he’d thrown at John thus far. One that would piss Laurens off beyond belief. The only problem is, what if he went so far that he ended up in actual trouble? Like losing his scholarship trouble. He didn’t think Laurens was worth that risk in the slightest. 

He’s on his way back from his weekly meeting with the Pride Society, the LGBTQ+ club he had joined orientation week. He’d signed himself up for the committee as their protest officer. It was his job to keep up to date with local protests, local issues and global ones too. He would plan protests for the society to back and take part in, as well as attending each of them himself.

On top of that, he’d already been to two of the weekly events held by the society. One had been a simple speed friending event that he’d ended up forgetting half the people’s names at. The other event they’d run had been a games night, full of quizzes and board games. The events weren’t the best organised or anything special. But the atmosphere in the room, the feeling of being surrounded by people who understood, who never question you, that feeling left him giddy after each event. 

Maybe it was the height of the giddiness that lead him to fall so low. He stops at the door of his dorm, his hand raised above the door handle. But he doesn’t open it. For a moment, he can’t. His body has frozen, his gaze glued on the whiteboard that’s drilled onto their door.

The whiteboards on the dorm doors were an accident waiting to happen. Call outs and insults were bound to appear on everyone’s. Yet for the most part, most roommates found them useful. People used them to joke with friends in other rooms, to leave up reminders, to tell each other where the other was or sometimes, to tell the other person they had company over. 

So far, Hamilton and Laurens board had always been blank. They’d never in a million years write a message to one another. Their friends would never leave a message either, aware the other’s worse enemy could always lay their eyes on it. 

Tonight though, there is something written across the board in black marker. 

**Alexander Faggiton**

and in smaller print underneath it

**There’s a million men I haven’t done. Ladies don’t wait.**

Alex has no idea how long the message has been there. He hasn’t been back to the room since this morning. He’d been too busy today. Who saw it? How many people laughed? How many people was he outed to? Not that he cared, not really. He didn’t hide it. He was on the committee for Pride after all.

But this felt wrong. This wasn’t him telling someone, this wasn’t someone seeing him with the society, this was people finding out through a sick joke. It took him a moment to compose himself. To relax his body again. He could feel eyes on him, but when he looked around the corridor was empty. He felt paranoid now.

He pulls his sleeve down over his hand and carefully wipes the message off the board. He doesn’t stop until every last smudge of black ink is removed. His grey shirt has a bit of a stain on its sleeve now, hopefully it’ll just wash out.

Who would have done this though? The question only comes to him once he’s calmed down enough to breathe normally again. The constriction on his chest lessens as he glares at the blank whiteboard. 

Laurens face flashes through his mind. Could this have been his next prank? His next scheme to piss Alex off. Did the fucker actually go this far with their hatred for one another. Far enough to start dropping words like faggot at him. 

He wouldn’t put it past him. Why would he? A southern conservative fucker. Probably thought he was real funny, real original. Probably didn’t even know how much the word stung, how much it hurt. How much emotion and feeling could be packed behind a single word.

Alex swings the door open, crashing it against his wardrobe as he marches into the room. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d been this angry. 

It doesn’t help that when he enters Laurens is lounging on his bed. He’s pretending to read some notes, but even from here Alex can hear the mumbling of some podcast blasting in his roommate’s ears. 

His noise cancelling headphones sit on his sly head. 

They’re so effective in fact that Lauren’s isn’t even aware Alex has entered the room until the shorter man rips the headphones off his head.

“What the fuck?” John jumps, his hand launching up to grab at the headphones, only to have Alex pull them back out of his reach. John gives Alex his best unimpressed glare.

“Can I help you with something?” 

“Did you do it?” Alex questions, his tone dangerously low.

“You’re going to have to be more specific there Hamilton. I do a lot of things” Laurens shoots back. His cryptic answer bringing Alex’s blood to a boiling level.

“Cut the bullshit Laurens. You know damn well what I’m on about” Hamilton throws back, his voice raising at the word damn as he does his best to reign in his emotion. He was not going to give this asshole the satisfaction of seeing him genuinely upset. 

Laurens has the audacity to grin at him then. His eyes practically gleaming up at Alex.

“You finally noticed then? Surprised it took you the day” John leans back as he speaks, pressing his back against the wall and folding his arms across his chest, looking pleased with himself.

Despite already having guessed it was his roommate, the confirmation of the crime still brings an eerie chillness to Alex’s gut. He had forgotten coming to college, what it felt like to meet someone like John Laurens. It was so easy to get wrapped up with his new accepting friends and his pride society, it was so easy to forget that bigotry, prejudice and homophobia still run rampant in this country. It was so easy to forget the feeling now resting in Alex’s gut, a feeling of disbelief; anger and frustration.

Alex throws the headphones back at John, smacking them hard against the other’s man’s chest as Laurens watches him, his smug complexion turning to one of curiosity at Hamilton’s unusual response. 

“You’re a piece of filth Laurens. You’re the dirt beneath the nails of our generation and someday you’re going to see how fucked up your attitude is and it’s going to be too late. You’re going to have to look your children in the face someday and admit what you are. An asshole.” 

Alex gives himself a mental pat on the back as he slams the door shut behind him on his way out. He’d managed to get through his little speech without crying. Without letting the swell of emotions sitting in his chest to burst. His voice had cracked a little on the last sentence, but no one’s perfect. 

He chants that last comforting line to himself all the way to Lafayette’s and Mulligans room. His cheeks are already tear streaked by the time the door opens. His friends looked shocked at first, and then horrified as Alex tells them what happened. 

He falls asleep that night squashed between Mulligans and Lafayette as the pair lull him to sleep with their conversations. They talk about anything and everything that isn’t anything to do with what Alex had to deal with tonight. Alex is pretty sure the last thing he hears his friends say as he drifts off to sleep is something about a cookie recipe. 

Meanwhile, Laurens stares dumbfounded at the door that Alex had just slammed. His chest felt tight for some reason, his palms clammy. Despite everything that had happened between Hamilton and himself in the last two and a half weeks, he’d never seen the other man so genuinely upset and angry.

It was like there was a cold uncontainable fury raging behind Hamilton’s eyes. The expression brought back a platter of unpleasant memories for John. He takes a moment to shake images of his dad from his vision. The man isn’t here. John is almost twenty-one. His dad had no power over him anymore, or at least that’s what John says to comfort himself as he feels his body temperature begin to drop and the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand up. 

Had what he done really upset Alexander that much? He supposed it would be annoying to clean up. Especially if Alex had already sent an inappropriate text or made an awkwardly wrong phone call. 

But John didn’t think mixing up the numbers on someone’s phone was that upsetting. He’d only changed a few, maybe fourteen at most. Just the common ones Alex has used a lot recently. 

John waits to question Alex further on the matter, maybe even to say some type of apology. But his roommate doesn’t return. Not at midnight, not at one in the morning. By the time two rolls around Laurens has given up on waiting and is trying to sleep.

It’s not easy. The familiar prickle of insomnia taunts him from the back of his mind. He has to remind himself he’s been doing well. When Hamilton wasn’t fucking with his sleep that is. 

Tonight though, the weight of guilt rests lightly on his rib cage. He feels out of place. Like he’s trying to defend himself for something he’s not even aware of. It just doesn’t add up why Alex was so angry earlier.

Eventually though John gives up on piecing it together. Hell, he doesn’t even like the guy. If Hamilton is going to have a stick up his ass about this, so be it. He should be able to take as good as he can give. John drifts off to sleep feeling better, clearer. 

He owes Alexander Hamilton nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited this super late at night for me so apologies for any mistakes! I won't get a chance to edit until the weekend.  
> Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! It was a little painful to write...


	7. The World Turned Upside Down

John was tired. He’d slept restlessly the night before, a part of him thinking Hamilton would burst into the room at some point, ranting and raving. But he never did.

John woke up alone in their room with a bitter taste in his mouth. The prank he played was not that bad. They’d done worse to one another over the last 2 weeks. He was not going to feel guilty about Hamilton overreacting. The asshole had probably tripped up the stairs or something on his way back to their room and had just been in a foul mood.

When the morning came, things didn’t get much better. The day just feels slow to John. His steps feel heavy, his motivation almost non-existent. He barely banters with Jefferson over their afternoon coffee, much to the worry of the bubbly man. 

Burr has been watching him all day as well, or maybe studying is a better word. 

Maybe Laurens is just sick of Hamilton. Sick of their petty war, sick of feeling anxious around his own room, and despite everything he’d gone through in the last year, he was starting to feel homesick. 

His mind often wanders to his siblings when he feels himself spacing out in lectures. He calls and texts them throughout the week but it’s not the same as bugging them in their room or having them come barrelling into his. He misses their unconditional love and loyalty.

He ends up heading to his dorm earlier than usual. He usually stays out as late as possible, so he doesn’t have to spend much time around Alexander. The only times he’s been back before 8pm were on days when the words just wouldn’t stay in place in his notes and staying in the library would become redundant and painful. 

Today though, he finds himself unlocking the door at 6pm. He just wants to block out the world for a while. Take a social break from constantly smiling, conversing and gauging how comfortable he was getting with his new friends. 

He was just going to have a quiet night of working on some projects, prep work and his drawing project for the week. 

_Don’t count your chickens before they hatch Jack_

His mother’s words ring in his ear as he swings his bedroom door open. His mouth falls open, his eyes scanning his side of the room in disbelief. A cauldron of dread drops into the pit of his stomach and he can feel tears of frustration burning the edges of his vision. This couldn’t be real.

All his loose belongings, be it stationary, his laptop, deodorant, his lamp, etc, are hanging, upside down, from the roof. John isn’t quite sure what’s even keeping them there. Bar his laptop which has been more carefully stuck up with duct tape. The rest seem to have some type of adhesive binding them to the roof.

It must have taken Alexander hours to pull this off. No doubt his pals had helped him out too.

Lauren’s feels his head whipping around the room, the bathroom door is open a crack, the lights off. Hamilton isn’t here. He doesn’t spot any camera’s either, even after taking a paranoid minute to search the room for one.

John can feel his breaths getting shallow as he swallows over a lump in his throat.

It’s just a prank Laurens. You can take as much as you dish out.

The sentiment does little to stop his eyes from darting from snow globe to snow globe. If any of them fall… no he can’t think like that. Even as he’s trying to be optimistic though he’s racing to his bed. 

He hops up and instantly his hand reaches up to grab at the turtle one. The other ones were special, priceless to him, but this one was above and beyond important.

He cradles the head of it, his hand barely able to wrap around the orb. The green sparkles have all clotted at the top and from his angle the light from the window is shining off the green turtle figurines inside.

_You like it… don’t you Jack?_

He’d been speechless when she handed it to him. He thought it was too precious for his ten-year-old hands. He’d been so afraid of smashing it, cracking it, even scrapping the pristine glass on it. He’d just nodded dumbly, not noticing the anxious look on her face until after he’d been staring at it in awe for two minutes. 

She’d smiled so brightly then. Her eyes scrunching up to show off her defined crows’ feet, and her dimples had been on full display. She was always at her happiest when she was bringing joy to her kids. 

John doesn’t even realise he’s crying until he has to wipe a tear that was trailing down his cheek.

He hates to move away from it. He holds his breath as he moves towards the door, his gaze never leaving the snow globe. He’s terrified to leave the room, terrified to hear it smashing off the ground beneath it when he closes the door. 

But he needs help. He needs to get them down without a scratch of damage. If he goes pulling and tugging at one of them, he might bring another one down by accident. 

Burr isn’t in his room. Of course, it’s still early. John doesn’t want to think what might have happened if he had come home later. If one had already fallen. 

He takes the stairs two at a time and it’s only when he’s ran outside that he realises he has no idea where to even start looking.

Anxiety builds in his stomach like an expanding knot and he might have broken down outside the dorms building if he didn’t remember he had Burr’s number and social medias.

He rolls his eyes at his own stupidity before unlocking his phone. One quick look on snap maps and he can see the man is somewhere in the campus library. Probably lounging in the history law section where the four of them usually spend their time studying together. It’s a particularly quiet spot that’s not blaringly bright like other sections. There’s always a good wi-fi connections too, and there’s plenty of plugs for their devices. 

John would run to his friend if his knees didn’t feel like they were about to buckle. He settles for speed walking instead, diving left and right as he passes out casual walkers and hordes of students. He did his best to not make a scene, but if anyone took a proper look at him, he’d probably look a tad maniac. 

He weaves in through the different campus lane ways, through trees, parks, around benches and fountains. He almost makes it to the library. If he’d been two minutes faster, he wouldn’t have bumped into them. 

It just really wasn’t his day. 

“John Laurens! Two weeks of doing the same course and yet we hardly seem to bump into each other” 

Charles Lee is beaming. He looks like a man who’s just been told he’s won the lottery, or maybe for Lee it was that he’d just seen a puppy getting beat on. Two unknown men flank either side of him, towering over the stouter man. 

“Charles” Laurens can feel his panicked face morphing into his formal grin. The glint in Lee’s eyes though are enough to tell John that the other man has noticed something is off.

“Yes well, it’s a large campus. We’re both hardly slackers either, hard to find the time to bump into people.” John knows he’s said the right thing by the way Lee’s smile stretches impossibly further. Or maybe, it’s not the right thing, maybe Charles just finds him amusing.

“Oh, certainly John. I’m sure you’ve already heard I was voted in as vice for the conservative party society” John hadn’t, he really didn’t care “So my hands have been completely full” He gestures with his arms that are carrying several books and John forces out a polite chuckle.

The other two nameless students standing by Charles sides were not helping John relax around the man. The other two men were taller than Lee, both blondes and athletic looking. No doubt the sons of some fancy lawyers or politicians that Charles’ father knew. Lee doesn’t introduce them, they don’t say anything bar laugh at Lee’s jokes, so John takes it he’d not meant to really acknowledge them. 

“Any who, we’re just on the way back from a meeting with the society and you’ll be delighted to hear that some of us will be collaborating and even competing against your little debate club throughout the year.” John holds back the shudder of disgust that wracks through him at Charles dismissive tone “I do hope we get a chance to debate with one another. Completely impersonal of course! Not as if we’d argue on much without a competition to tell us which side we have to debate on”

The smirk Lee throws at him is sinister and scheming and John was wondering how much trouble he’d get into if he just threw one little punch at the guy’s face. Probably a lot… John does find it amusing though that Lee, in his own way, thinks so highly in John. Oh, if Lee actually knew the ideals John held close to his heart. The other man would be repulsed. 

“Yes well, I’ll have to make one of the teams first” John retorts, keeping his tone light and cheery. It’s the kind of tone that always sounds like you’re about to deliver the punchline of a joke. 

Lee is well used to such tones, having it be the go-to speaking voice at political parties. Charles does the polite chuckle and shakes his head slowly.

“You’re much too modest John. You’re a fine debater! I look forward to us going head to head.” 

John hates how much this guy, someone his own age, sounds so eerily like John’s father. 

“As do I Lee. Anyways I was just on my way to the library, so I’ll have to catch up with you another time.” John takes a step towards the building, hovering for a moment so Lee can acknowledge his farewell. 

“Best of luck to you John! Oh and, I hope you enjoyed the message we left on your door last night, Ryan here has quite the quick-witted mind” 

John stops in confusion, tilting his head at the trio and the man that Lee just patted on the shoulder. What message?

“Oh uh, did you leave a note or something? I’m afraid I must have missed it” John admits, one his hands fiddling at the edge of his sleeve.

What had Lee left there? Was it a message he was meant to pass on to his father? Was it a message at all or some kind of snide gift? Had Hamilton picked it up and chucked it somewhere? 

John watches as a look of mock annoyance passes over Charles’ face.

“Oh, how boring, the immigrant must have wiped it away before you had the pleasure to see it. You weren’t home too near 9pm then? He must have gotten in before you”

9pm? John had been home around half eight-last night. He’d had his headphones on though and his lectures blaring in his ears. If Lee and his boys had written something on his door’s whiteboard, he wouldn’t even have heard it. 

John swallows the lump of dread in his throat, clears it and then feels confident enough to find out what the fuck Alex had read before entering their room.

“What uh- What was the message then? Anything important?” 

Lee snorts at his questions, at the same moment the two mindless goons chuckle as though it was the most amusing thing they’d heard all day. Maybe it was. 

“See for yourself”

Ryan, the taller blonde one, passes his phone over to John, laughing as he opens up the image.

John holds the phone like it’s a ticking time bomb. The photo is high quality, the glare of the whiteboard is muted so it’s easy to make out what’s sprawled across his door. The word hits John like a brick, the sentence itself makes him feel queasy. It’s a cheap bit, a sour joke, a tasteless scummy cowardice thing to write.

_You want to spend your whole life being called a faggot, boy?_

His father’s words ring like static in his head. He passes the phone back, pushing down all the negative thoughts and all the fury that’s billowing just below his measured breathes. 

He grins at Lee, his eyes not matching the tone of his voice as he bites back in the most neutral tone he can muster.

“Very creative Charles, an excellent rhyme. I would however appreciate if you didn’t write such vulgar on my door. I wouldn’t want anyone to think it applies to me after all” The lie is quick and painless. A desperate stone being tossed into a pond of time bombs. Someday they’ll all go off. But for now, John would rather bury everything in it’s depths.

Charles face drops for a moment, his mind calculating what his response should be. He’d obviously been expecting John to laugh, maybe even double over, wipe a tear away. He’s been thrown off his balance, a dangerous reaction for a man like Charles Lee.

“Well, we highly doubted anyone of your stature would be thought of as such a shameful and inhuman thing, John.” The tone is defensive and sharp. Lee did not like being told what to do, especially not in front of his little audience.

“I understand completely Lee. You’ll have to forgive me; I am just a tad paranoid. Not everyone had such an educational and political upbringing as ourselves. I’d be worried someone may not recognise me and instead…” He lowers his voice slightly, as though he’s appalled by what he’s about to say “lump me in with that lot.”

Laurens must be picking something up from Burr because he’s completely turned Lee’s mood around. The man seems delighted to have gotten both an apology and an acceptable explanation from John. 

“Of course. Well say no more, we shall keep our humorous pranks away from your dorm, for your dignities sake.”

“Much obliged” John can hear his southern drawl strengthen the longer he speaks to this man. He needs to get away from this conversation, he needs to find Burr. Fuck, he needs to get back to his snow globes. 

“See you around John.”

With a wave from Lee and a nod from the two silent men, Lee’s little posse stalks off. John watches them for a moment, just to make sure they actually turn the corner and disappear off into the distance before he turns on his heels and practically jogs into the library. 

\------------------------------

“But how on earth did they-”

“I don’t know”

“When did they…”

“Some point between 9am and 6pm”

“They even glued the pens individually”

“Yup”

John anxiously nibbles at his bottom lip as Burr surveys the mess above them. The other man is wiping a hand across in face in disbelief, his eyes tracing the route between each glued or taped object.

“John this is…this is madness” Burr flicks his head to glare at John who’s resting against Alex’s desk. “You have to report this. These are your own private possessions. He can’t just do shit like this. It’s crossing a line.”

John’s taken a bit aback from Burr’s tone. John doesn’t think he’s heard the man swear yet. 

“That’s what I thought too! Especially when all I’d done is mess with his phone a bit.” John wipes the sweat off the back of his neck, feeling a lit sheepish explaining his pranks to Aaron, Mr Serious. 

“But?” Burr prompts.

“But…then I realised it wasn’t the phone thing at all that Alex was mad about. We may have had a… misunderstanding of sorts.”

“Something tells me every conversation you two have is a misunderstanding.”

John half heartedly glares at Burr for that snide comment. John was in a foul enough mood as is, he didn’t need to be berated right now. 

“So, what could have been so bad that Alexander thought this was a logical form of revenge?” 

John tells Burr the whole story. He’s the only one on campus John would trust with the story. The only one who won’t think him a coward for not cursing Lee out of it, for not picking a fight. Maybe the only other person who truly knew Lee the way John did. Jefferson and Madison claimed they’d barely seen Lee at any of the functions they’d been forced to. They hadn’t been to as many as John or Burr though. Their parents hadn’t been as strict on the matter. 

Burr’s reaction is calculated, measured. He doesn’t give away much about his feelings for the disgusting tale, bar a sharp intake of breath when Laurens described what was written on the whiteboard. 

“That’s…” His voice trails off as he tries to come up with a response.

“Vile?” John suggests, the word has been echoing around his head ever since he saw the photo.

“To put it lightly.” Burr nods. 

The answer is plain, but the words are warm to John. He’d never assumed what Burr’s stances on the LGBT community were, but he was glad Burr seemed thoroughly off putted by what Lee had done. John knew he’d picked a good person to make friends with. 

“This…” Burr gestures to the state of the room “Suddenly makes a lot more sense.”

“It’s quite impressive what someone will do when they’re genuinely upset. Especially if that person is Alexander Hamilton” John comments, crossing his arms over his chest for a bit of comfort. He was starting to feel sick from staring at the upside-down objects. 

It takes him a moment to realise that Burr is staring at him. Not only that, but he’s staring at him with a genre of intent and calculation that John can’t quite place. It’s unsettling to say the least, to see the genius gears spinning behind Burr’s eyes but to have no idea what they’re working out.

“You need to tell him”

“Tell him what?” John shoots back, standing up from the desk and popping his spine abruptly, drawing himself to his full height. He tries to look at Burr as he asks the question but finds himself staring at his turtles’ canvas instead. 

“Tell him what?” Burr repeats John’s words back to him in disbelief “Tell him you didn’t do it John. Tell him that you’re not the dick he’s so keen to believe you are. That you’re not your father, or his ideals, and that you don’t go around calling people a faggot.” 

John flinches at the last word. He’s sure Burr noticed but the man stays silent as John processes what Burr just spat at him. Aaron seems frustrated, he’s biting the inside of his cheek as he waits for an answer, or an explanation from John. Laurens is starting to think he should have just cleaned up the mess alone. He’s sort of tired of doing things alone though.

“I can’t” The answer ends up as a whisper. If they hadn’t been standing in a silent room, Burr mightn’t have heard him.

“John. I find it hard to believe you’re really such a prideful man that you can’t-”

“It’s not pride.” John snaps, his hands curling to fists as his top teeth chomp down on his bottom lip. He has to shut himself up somehow. Stop himself from starting a rant he’s not sure he can finish.

Burr quirks an eyebrow at his friend, surprised at his outburst. He gives John a moment to continue, folding his arms loosely and perching himself on the edge of John’s desk. He would wait all night if that’s what it took for John to explain himself. 

“You understand Burr, you have to because- because we’re so similar sometimes. Similar in where we came from, how we grew up, what we went through.” He swallows hard at the last bit, he doesn’t say it, he can’t. But he can tell by how Burr shuffles uncomfortably that the other man gets it. They’re both in the dead parent club, Burr just happens to have a double membership. 

“People like us live our life being watched. Whether it’s by paparazzi fishing for a political scandal or our parent’s snobby political friends, rivals, partners, or they’re insufferable children. People are always watching and waiting in the wings for us to muck up. They enjoy watching people like us fail. Alexander would be delighted if I bombed at something right before him. He doesn’t want to get to know me. He’s watched enough of where I came from to think he knows who I am. I’m sick of convincing people what I am, or amn’t. What I can do versus what I want to do. I refuse to spend the start of my brand-new life, away from the political spotlight, debating with Alexander Hamilton that I’m not a racist, homophobic southern prick. I spent too many years trying to convince politicians that I was those things, I won’t spend the next four years convincing people of the truth.” He pauses to take a breath, realising he’d quickly ran out of air thanks to the speed at which his words were falling from his lips. 

“If he wants to know the truth, he can ask. He can ask properly. Not in riddles like he did last night. I’m just not going to be the one to offer up the information.”

Burr is looking at him with pity now. One of the few emotions that is easy to read on Burr.

“John-”

“No. Please. I don’t want a pity rant or a debate. I don’t want to be told to see common sense or to get over myself. I just- This is how I’m handling things. So please, just drop it. Don’t tell Alexander anything”

Burr looks torn. It’s clear to see that the man wants to argue more, wants to convince John to see sense. Maybe a small part of John wants him to. 

Instead, Burr just gently nods his head.

“Alright John. Whatever you prefer”

If Burr had been anyone else John might have hugged him to show him his gratitude. Instead they just share a small smile with one another. 

“Now, the next order of business” Burr tilts his head back to glare up at a pen dangling down from above him. “How on earth do we get all this down?”

The answer to that question was, slowly. Especially with the snow globes. John spent ages at those as Burr tugged pens and books easily enough off the roof. John carefully and tediously rocked and tilted the items until he could slowly and carefully peel them off the ceiling. He’d moved his bed under the ornaments, having to pull his beside table out, just as a back up in case one of the snow globes did fall. They had a much better chance if they landed on the cushiony mattress than if they crashed onto the hard carpeted floor. 

It takes them the better part of two hours, but come half past eight, John’s room is looking the way it did that morning. With the addition of some nasty looking ceiling marks that is. Some bits of glue and tape had stayed stubbornly stuck on. It would have bothered John more if he wasn’t happily holding his turtle globe.

There is still some glue stuck to the bottom of the ornaments. But John is already working on getting rid of them with a file and scissors. He’s determined for his prized possessions to be back to their former glory.

“Madison just texted. They’re making tacos downstairs for dinner. They’ve ended up with far too much and are, and I quote ‘begging for some assistance’. You gonna come down?” Burr is already shrugging his jacket on as he speaks, making his way towards the door.

“I had a late lunch actually; I think I’ll pass”

He doesn’t add that his stomach still felt sick from the events of the day. Or that he is too tired from the night before to even think straight at this point.

“Alright. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow I guess” Burr goes to leave but John quickly calls out to him.

“Burr” He meets the man’s eyes this time, the first time maybe since they’d entered the room. “Thank you. For all your help. For everything you did today”

A grin stretches across his friend’s face, genuine and merry this time. Not like the mannerly ones he usually sports.

“Anytime John.” 

Then he’s gone. The door clicks closed, and John goes back to his filing. 

The words had sounded so simple coming from Burr. As though being there for someone was easy. As though it was something you could do with ease. 

John’s phone lights up. One of his sisters is calling.

John didn’t know how Burr pulled off the nonchalance tone. 

Being there for people you care about, is the most difficult task John could think of. To think you could be there anytime, as though time itself wasn’t a battle ground between work, family, friends and oneself. How could you promise ‘anytime’ in a world where time is precious, and any was unrealistic? Rarely do people have free time, and even when they do, why would they use it to help him?

_Giving your time to someone is always worth it Jack. Karma. It always comes to visit._

What had John done to earn his karma? Why was karma biting him in the ass when it came to his room situation but picking him back up when it came to needing a friend to lean on. 

How does it all work? 

John wishes that for once, he could just have the answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don't know how I'm writing this fic. I have so many ideas, so many scenes planned out in my head and ready to write. Yet I have so many blanks in between when I want these events to happen. Most of this scene just came to me as I wrote the opening. I love how it's all coming together but I just hope I'm balancing it all right. I'm trying to have John chapters, Alex chapters and then obviously chapters that center around both of them and their story. I think the issue is, I started writing this without knowing whose story I'm telling. I just know I want to tell the story that is appearing before your guys eyes. Anyways this is a long winded way of me saying that I hope this fic is making sense and running smoothly because the more I try to reread and pick it apart, the crazier I feel xD
> 
> Hope you guys are enjoying this wild ride!
> 
> Also! Longest chapter yet!! Wohooo! Over 4k! I wasn't expecting it to be this long but damn if you guys can't tell yet...I am a simp for dialogue.


	8. Collaboration

John is silent when Hamilton comes through their door near midnight.

He’s sitting at his desk, clicking through lecture slides and scribbling down frantic notes. His headphones are blaring another podcast and although he glances at Alex when he enters the room, he does nothing to acknowledge him.

He seems to have gotten everything off the ceiling. Although, Alex can still see scuff marks and stains from where the glue and tape had been.

It had looked magnificent. Himself and Lafayette had managed to do it in an hour or so. He’d came up with it a few days back, a way to win this petty feud. After last night, he thought he was entitled and righteous enough to execute it.

He’d miscalculated though.

Alex had been expecting a blowout. A screaming match in his face, a march down to the office, pictures upon pictures of evidence passed around to the different members of the administration. He expected his roommate to move rooms. He expected an official inquiry. He was sure John would try and snatch Hamilton’s scholarship away from him after this prank, with this complete disregard for Lauren’s own possessions.

He wasn’t expecting this, however. The coldness of John’s steady glare when they first lock eyes. The flip in Alex’s stomach when Laurens turns his face back to his computer, silent with his anger. 

Alex makes a show of dropping his jacket unceremoniously onto the back of his desk chair. He kicks off his shoes, hitting them loudly off his wardrobe and ends up sitting on the side of his desk, facing his Lauren’s side of the room. He stares curiously at his roommate, giving the man thirty seconds to snap at Alex. 

“You’re not going to say anything?” Alex finally asks, because the quiet is too much. It’s heavier than any argument could be and more suffocating than the usual anxiety surrounding their room.

John acts like he doesn’t hear him. Or maybe he can’t. Not with how loud his podcast is blaring.

“Laurens.” He says his name louder this time. He taps his fingers impatiently against his thigh, staring the other man down until John is forced to turn and address him.

“Can I help you?” Laurens tone is reserved and quiet. It feels like an elastic band ready to snap, like John is barely holding something back. Alex wishes John would just let it go.

Alex raises an eyebrow in response. He hadn’t been expecting a question. He’s starting to realise he should stop expecting things from Laurens. He always seems to be wrong.

“I asked if you were going to say anything.”

“I don’t know Hamilton. Is there anything to say.?”

“Does every conversation between us have to be this difficult.”

John looks startled by the question. Hamilton takes any emotion crossing his roommates face as a win. 

“Why do you care if it is. Why would it be easy?” John sounds tired. Alex is getting tired too.

“Look. We both dislike each other. We’ve made that apparent. We both went…” Alex’s eyes flick to the ceiling. His stomach lurches as he thinks back to the message on their door. “a little far with this prank stuff. Can we just…call a truce or something. Stop rocking this boat and simply ignore each other?”

“Ignore? You’re the one who interrupted me.” He gestures to his laptop.

“I mean, starting now.” Alex grits his teeth together to stop himself from adding asshole to the end of his sentence. “No more pranks or touching each other’s stuff. Instead, we try to live in silent harmony.”

It’s hard for Alex to compromise. He’s spent the day looking forward to seeing the fruits of his revenge. He half wished he’s left a camera somewhere to record John’s reaction. It all tastes bittersweet now though, John Laurens looks more broken than angry. 

A part of him relished the look when he first entered the room, delighted he’d made such an ignorant homophobe feel a tad of what Alex had felt when he saw those horrible words. The other part of him was saying he should be better than that. Aim for higher ground when facing his enemy. That’s what George would say if he was here. 

Laurens shrugs in response, pushing his headphones back over his ears. 

“Sounds good to me.”

Alex stands and goes to make his way to the bathroom. He needs a shower and then to sleep for at least nine hours. 

He pauses though when John pulls one of the headphones back, pressing it against the side of his head.

“Oh, and Hamilton.”

He doesn’t even turn from his screen as he speaks, his voice sounding almost glacial now.

“What?”

“You touch any of those globes again. You so much as ‘accidentally’ knock one. I will not be responsible for my actions when I find out.”

He wants to mock the man, tease at him that his threats delivery could use some work. But there’s something in Laurens tone. Something beyond anger, beyond spite, something vulnerable. 

Alex rolls his shoulders back, cracking his neck as he thinks of how to respond without starting another argument. 

“Noted.”

He ends the conversation by slamming their bathroom door behind him. 

He misses the way john slumps, the way he tiredly rubs at his eyes and stares longingly at his snow globes. 

They were still enemies. They still hated one another. But things had gone from a potential world war to another cold war. It was at least an improvement. 

They could just pretend the other doesn’t exist and move on with their individual college careers. 

\----------------------------------

Their plan works. Initially at least…

They go a whole week without saying more than a few words to another. The words they do say revolve around turning off lights, picking up toilet paper and other roommate necessary dialogue. 

They never bring their friends over; they never spend time together in the room. They both find a way to spend their time in the library, hanging out with their friends, hanging out in the games room in the dorm building or the dorm’s common room. They actively avoid each other when possible.

It’s refreshing after the two weeks of constant friction. They’ve built up a nice routine around each other. 

John should have known it wouldn’t last.

It only takes one e-mail to ruin it all. 

John’s sitting in the library in his usual corner. Jefferson is sitting beside him, taking a break from his work to watch song covers on YouTube. Burr and Madison are working on an English project together across the table. They’ve been arguing in a hushed tone for the last five minutes about the conflict in their essay. John’s too afraid at this stage to ask what their problem is.

John had been trying to script up some of his notes from his criminal law class when the e-mail notification flashed up on his screen. The notification informs him that the e-mail was sent by his psychology professor. 

As he clicks into his inbox, he can see the subject line reads ‘Essay partner’. 

He’s confused as he clicks into it. They weren’t meant to be picking their partners for this semester’s essay until Monday of the fourth week. Today was only the Friday of the third week. Maybe it was a reminder sent to all students to have their partner ready?

No. The e-mail opens addressed personally to John. His eyes quickly scan the contents of the message. This couldn’t be real. It has to be some cruel prank by fate herself. _Karma_ his mind mocks.

It’s only a few lines of text. Mr Frederick had apparently been very impressed with John at his opening lecture. That would be good news to read if it wasn’t for the sentence that followed it. George had also been impressed with the one and only, Alexander Hamilton. His e-mail was an adamant suggestion that the two pair up for the essay. Although from the tone in the content, suggestion might be too weak a word for it. 

John plants his face into his hands, wondering if he can go back to five minutes ago when he was blissfully optimistic about his college life. Jefferson takes interest in his screen after seeing the pained slouching of his friend doubling over on himself.

He balances his arm on John’s shoulder as he leans over to get a better look at the screen. A “Whaaa-” escapes his lips as an incredulous whisper. He breaks into barely contained hysterics then. Clutching onto Lauren’s arm as John groans at his friend’s glee.

“Oh John, you are truly fucked” 

\------------------------------------

Across campus, Hamilton is having a similar reaction. He’d been lounging on Lafayette’s bed while Mulligans ranted at him from his own bed. His half-brother was off drawing somewhere and had wanted the pair ‘out of his hair’ so he could focus. They’d left the French man to his devices on a park bench on campus, he’d been squinting angrily at the clouds last Alex had seen him.

Mulligan’s took Hamilton’s silent indifference as he collapsed on Laf’s bed as an opportunity to complain about his lacrosse team and their lack of field awareness…or some sports problem like that. 

Alex did his best to comfort his friend, or at least have the man feel like Hamilton was listening. He nods and hums at the right times and gently prompts his friend when it sounds like Mulligan is questioning if any of it is going in Alex’s ears. He checks his phone though when it buzzes. 

He clicks the notification and unlocks his phone so that it’s open straight away. He bolts to a sitting position when he reads it, his face a mask of reluctancy and frustration.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I know! That’s what I said!” Mulligans hollers, startling Alex. His friend had apparently thought Alex had been contributing to his raving. Whoops…

\---------------------

“We’re not working together. I’m not missing out on an honours in Psychology because of you.”

“Because of me? Don’t be so naive Laurens. We both know you’d slow me down and contribute some watered down, traditional argument.”

Laurens had burst into their room as he spoke. Alex had been spinning anxiously in his office chair waiting for the confrontation and had been quick to jump into the conversation. 

Despite the insulting retort, John looks relieved with his response.

“Good. We’re in agreement then. We tell Mr Frederick Monday then that there’s no way we can do the essay together.” 

“Oh, we’re not going to just _tell him_. I’ve an alphabetical list of why it’s a terribly misjudged idea.” Alex waves a full refill pad of words in his face. 

“I don’t even want to know what the hell you came up with.” John can’t help the brief smirk that flickers on his face at the oddness of Alexander Hamilton. He quickly wipes it off his face though when he realises what he’s doing. 

“We’ll speak to him Monday then, after the lecture.”

“Sounds good to me.” Alex confirms, leaning back in his chair. 

John collapses into his own chair, spinning it around until he’s facing his desk. He needs to do something to occupy his mind and break the stale air in the room. Alex was still watching him instead of doing… literally anything else.

He grabs his sketchpad and starts to ink up a sketch he’d been working on earlier. It was for this week’s prompt ‘Clouds’. John is taking a more liberal approach with the prompt. Instead of just drawing a collection of clouds around a moon, sun or group of birds, he was taking a more fantasy approach. 

His clouds bunch at the bottom of the page, well sketched and shaded, he’d spent hours at them. They vaporise then as they reach upwards, their thickness turning to wisps as if something is dragging clumps of the clouds from the main body of cloud. Coming down from the top middle of page then is a long curvy tail. It’s scaly and sharp and sparkles with the light of a moon that’s just barely spotted in the top left corner of the drawing. John had considered colouring the piece but as he inks it, he realises he prefers the atmosphere of the monochrome piece.

He barely hears the door close as Alex leaves. Hopefully he won’t be back until John’s in bed. 

\----------------

Monday afternoon is upon them in no time. For once, neither John nor Alex speak up in their psychology lecture. Both of them are too on edge to break into an argument. Especially if they end up arguing with one another. For once, the pair were on the same side today. 

They march down from the opposite sides of the lecture hall as soon as the lecture is finished. George is slowly shutting down the lecture hall’s computer when they reach him. He glances up when he hears their footsteps and his face breaks into a beaming smile.

“Ah, if it isn’t my two most impressive first year students. A bit silent today lads, saving your energy for your essay?” 

“Actually sir, the essay is what we came down here to speak to you about.” John explains, glancing at Alex for back up. 

“Yes. John and I have been speaking and we’re _really_ not suited to do this together. Here, I’ve even drawn up a list on why-”

George waves the sheet of paper away without so much as a passing glance.

“Now now. I realise your competitiveness may have you both at ends with one another most days, but it’s that passion between you both that’ll make for such an interesting report” 

“Sir with all due respect, there won’t be a report if we’re forced to do it together. We barely survive as roommates, having to collaborate-”

George cuts John off mid-rant. The pair were starting to get the impression that this professor was used to having things his way. 

“Roommates? Well isn’t that even more perfect. You can discuss the subject at all hours of the day. I’m sure it’ll be riveting” He actually claps then. An excited sort of twitch that’s accompanied by a shrill giggle. 

Alex and John share a bewildered look of confusion. What was wrong with this guy? As if Alex and Laurens discussed anything in their room.

“With all due respect boys…” John winces at the use of his owns words against him “I’ve made up my mind on the matter. If you fail to submit anything, it’ll be your own failure reflecting back at you” 

Alex straightens up and opens his mouth to argue at the same moment that Laurens feels his shoulders slouching in defeat. It’s pointless to try arguing though because as soon as he’s finished making his point the professor twirls around and walks confidently and purposefully towards the back exit of the lecture hall. 

So much for teaming up against the lecturer. Looks like the pair would now have to suck it up and grumble through the project. 

Laurens turns to speak to Alex, to sort out when they should meet; when they should start planning; what topic they were even going to pick from the list of prompts on their essay’s assignment page. But Alex is already at the bottom of the stairs, he takes them two at a time as he angrily storms out of the lecture hall. 

Well… at least Laurens knew he’d see the man this evening. His phone buzzes and he knows before he opens it that it’s Jefferson wondering what was taking him. 

With a sigh he starts his own ascension out of the hall. He would deal with Hamilton later. He was not going to fail a class because of their rivalry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short chapter! I was really just using this chapter as a spring board to set up some of the next chapters I have planned :) Things are going to get spicey...


	9. In The Eye Of A Hurricane

Two days have passed since George’s final word on Alex and John’s partnership and Alex still hasn’t been able to seek out John and make plans for it. Every time he tries to hype himself up to do it, he ends up chickening out.

His mind keeps floating back to the stupid message on their door. John seems so lovely sometimes. He can be all smiles and bright sparkly eyes, especially when he’s on the phone to his siblings. 

He always has his headphones on so Alex can’t hear what his siblings are saying but John gets so animated when he speaks with them. He calls them at least twice a week. Alex isn’t always in the room for the calls but when he is, he can’t help but overhear John asking about their lives, their health, their hobbies. As much as it sickens Alex to admit, John’s a great brother.

That’s the worst thing about John. He always seems nice. He’s polite to everyone. Angelica adored him the first time they met at debate; it had sent Alex on a rant about how awful Henry Laurens is. Angelica had initially defended John, saying he mightn’t be as bad as his father, but her tune changed when she heard about the white board incident. 

Alex avoids John as much as possible at debate club. Every week the society splits into two or three groups to debate, to give people more time to speak. Every week Alex makes sure they’re in separate rooms giving separate arguments. He’s heard John is a strong speaker, witnessed it himself in lecture halls when John answers a question or debates with the professor. But Alex hadn’t seen him in full debate mode yet.

Laurens would probably have made a great friend in another world. A world where he wasn’t raised by his father, where he wasn’t raised to judge and distrust people like Alex on sight. A world where they could have seen eye to eye in debates, where they could have dominated competitions and been notoriously close roommates. 

Not in this world though. In this world John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton are built to despise one another. 

Alex flicks his head to look up at the roof as he leans back on his chair, his feet propped up on his desk. He really should get the ball rolling on this project when John gets back to their dorm. It’s currently around nine pm and the dorms hall is silent. 

John’s usually home late on Wednesdays. Alex knows from Laf that drawing club meets on Wednesdays and they usually all hang out afterwards for completely illegal drinks. Well illegal for most of the first and second years anyways, who are definitely under twenty-one.

Alex decides he’s better off working on his corporate law assignment that’s due on Friday than he is staring off into space. He’s already done the research part of the project and now he just needs to piece it altogether into a first-class honours worthy essay. 

As usual, he gets so engrossed in his writing that he doesn’t even notice when Lauren’s walks in. Doesn’t notice the man is drenched to the bone, his hair slick against his head. He misses how John’s jacket soaks the carpet under their door below where he hangs it up. Alex missed how John has to leave his shoes upside down on the radiator to dry off.

The first time he realises another human is within three feet of him is when the door to their shared bathroom shuts, the vibration of the motion jostling Hamilton out of his daze. He hears the shower start up and his eyes flick to see its past half eleven. 

Well… it’s too late to speak to John about it now. They’ll probably just end up fighting and then Alex will be too worked up to sleep. Alex is not a coward… he’s just waiting for the right time to sort everything out. 

He decides to hop into bed while Laurens is in the shower to avoid any conversation or confrontation on the matter. Alex even forgoes brushing his teeth and just lays his head down on the pillow, trying to relax his usual racing thoughts. 

It’s only as he’s lying their wide awake does the scent of rain from Lauren’s clothes reach him. It’s only then he hears the battering of heavy rain fall against the window, the wind whistling outside like an eerie ghoulish screech. 

His eyes stay wide up and staring in horror at the wall as off in the distance he hears a rumble. Oh, please let him fall asleep before it arrives. He can do it, Alex tells himself. He doesn’t need to go to Laf’s room. He’ll fall asleep long before it makes its way to campus, he reassures himself.

He screws his eyes shut, evens out his breathing and starts to count imaginary sheep in his head. He tries his best to block out the distant storm. But it’s difficult to block it out when his heart is now thumping in rhythm to the distant thunder. 

_The world is being ripped away. The very foundation splintering around me as solid walls become paper mâché being torn apart by thunder._

His own words echo in his mind. The same words that got him where he is today. The words that brought him to America, the words that got him his degree, the words that gave him a new chance at life. 

The words that will forever haunt him.

\--------------------------

Alex was avoiding him. 

I mean, that was kind of their thing at this stage, avoiding one another. 

Except now Hamilton and Laurens actually have to suck it up and collaborate on something. 

John kept trying to corner his roommate. But every time John tries to get him alone for more than a minute, Alex manages to weasel himself out of talking. 

Which, John has to say, is quite remarkable considering the two live together and also, that this is Alexander Hamilton that’s refusing to speak. 

Like tonight for example, John marches into their room at half eleven and gets completely ignored. Even as he grumbles about the hurricane like weather outside and drags water across their room. Then, after he comes out of his much-needed shower, the guy has thrown himself into bed. 

Since when is Alex one to run from college work?

John makes a promise to himself that he’s going to get up extra earlier the next morning and force Alex to talk to him on the way to their second psychology lecture of the week. They needed to get started this week or they’d never get the grade they both wanted. 

John barely even notices the sound of rain against the window as he drifts off the sleep. Maybe if he had, he would have been more prepared. 

He wakes up suddenly, his heart racing, his hand springing outwards trying to push at something that isn’t there. John’s sitting up in his bed, the room’s dark. He has no idea if it’s 1am or 4am. 

He’s crying he realises, gasping and choking and clutching at his chest now. His body is tense like a coil about to spring. The only thing he can hear is his own frantic breathing and the thump of his heart against his ribcage. He’s too afraid to move for the first minute. All his muscles have locked, and his eyes can’t look past the edge of his desk at the end of his bed. 

He’d been drowning again. Pounding against a door that wouldn’t open, screaming for people that were miles away. He hadn’t had this dream in a long time, close to a year maybe.

John manages to even out his breathing. His hands eventually unclench, and his jaw unlocks. He wipes away the few tears that had trailed down his cheeks and realises he’s sweat through his t-shirt.

He quickly pulls it off over his head, throwing it to the end of the bed. It’s then that he realises the room isn’t quiet. The frantic sound of heavy breathing hasn’t stopped. 

His eyes slowly scan across to Alex’s side of the room. The curtains are cracked up just enough to allow the streetlamp outside their dorm to vaguely light up his roommate. 

The first thing that startles Laurens is that Hamilton isn’t in his bed. He’s sat curled up on the floor between their beds. His blanket is scrunched up and abandoned at the bottom of his bed and his sheets are twisted and half pulled off his mattress.

His arms are wrapped tightly around his knees and his face is hidden; his chin tucked against shis chest. John might have called out to him if it wasn’t for the fact that Alex’s entire body was quaking. John can hear the muffled broken breathes and pained groans and is at a complete loss at what is going on.

Just as he’s about to reach for his phone to see if some world-shattering event has occurred since he dozed off, a crack of lightning illuminates the room, a second or so later thunder echoes throughout the campus. Whatever storm had been starting when Laurens had been on his walk home, has finally arrived at the university.

Hamilton freezes when the thunder sounds. His whole body locking up, his breathe cutting off mid gasp. The whole pause seems like an attempt to hide. As though Alex was trying to stay so silent and still that whatever he was cowering from, wouldn’t be able to find him.

John slowly creeps off the side of his bed, lowering himself onto the floor and landing on his knees. He makes his way within arm’s reach of Alex and leans back, resting his ass on his feet.

“Alex” John’s tone is soft, his speech barely above the noise of a whisper. Hamilton doesn’t respond. He gives no indication that he can hear John.

“Alex, it’s alright. It’s Laurens.”

John wasn’t sure what was causing this. It could be a panic attack, it could be from a nightmare, it could be an actual mental breakdown. Whatever it is, at this moment all the hate, all the annoyance; frustration and anger that had been bubbling inside John when he looks at Alex, evaporates.

In this moment, John has never understood Alex more. John knows all too well what it was like to be locked inside your own body from fear. He’s also had more than enough practice with his siblings when it comes to trying to help someone calm down and come back to themselves. Although, it’s a lot easier to help someone who unconditionally trusts you.

“Alex please. Can you hear me?” 

The use of a question seems to get through to Alex in some capacity because ever so slowly Alex’s head turns. He just twists his neck to the left enough, that one of his eyes is peaking around his knees.

“Good, good. I need you to keep an eye on me. Okay?” 

John praises any kind of reaction from Alex, gives him an instruction, something Alex can focus on. Then he ends the sentence with another question, trying to keep his roommate engaged and thinking. 

“Can you look at me with both eyes Alex?” The other man’s breathing is getting quicker, John can see panic flaring up in his eyes. John’s not sure if that’s because Alex is unable to lift his head from his chest, or if it’s because Hamilton is slowly realising the scene that’s unfolding around him. John doesn’t think he’d be thrilled either if Alexander was trying to comfort him at a time where he’s vulnerable.

“That’s okay, you’re okay. Just one eye for now is fine” This time Alex reacts a bit calmer. His next breath is slower, lighter. After a moment he manages the smallest nod.

John creeps forwards another inch and suddenly the room is bathed in white light again. Another flash of lightning. This time though, John’s eyes are on Alex. He watches how Alex’s eye widen, his breath sucks in harsher than any other time. John sees complete terror reflecting back at him in the pupils of Hamilton’s eyes.

Alex screws his eye shut. John doesn’t think he’ll open it again for a while. When the thunder follows three seconds later, Alex is tenser than when John first woke up.

The storm. Alex is petrified of storms. There’s more to it than that, John can guess that much. The reaction seems extreme for a simple phobia many people harbour. 

John is at a loss at what to do. If this was his siblings he’d scoop them up, cuddle them close, whisper all the usual comforting lines and repeated stories he always tells them when they’re scared. He doesn’t know any stories that would comfort Alex. He doesn’t even know if the man wants to be touched, if he wants John to speak or not.

Lafayette. Lafayette would know what to do.

“Alex. I’m going to go get Lafayette. I’ll just be a minute.” He keeps his tone light, pushing himself upwards as he speaks. He doesn’t even get properly to his feet though when Alex startles him by speaking.

“No, please don’t.” The voice coming from his roommate sounds nothing like Alexander Hamilton’s voice. It’s coarse and it’s cracking and breaking between each word. There is no smoothness to it, his tone carries none of its usual vigour. It doesn’t help that the last word is ruptured by a sob erupting from his chest.

It seems that John’s actions have caused some dam to break inside of Hamilton because suddenly he’s crying. His hands grip at his hair, his fingers curling around large chunks of locks and Alex is tugging and twisting at them. His feet drilling into the floor under him as he lets out sob after sob.

He’s overwhelmed, John notes. He’s looking for anything, pain or the coarseness of the carpet beneath his feet to steady him.

He’s drowning

The thought snaps John into moving. His hands grapple with Hamilton’s, he interlocks their fingers and drags them away from Alex’s hair. The priority must be to stop Alex from hurting himself. John had learnt that much from his sister.

“Whoa Alex, it’s alright. Ease up.” He clutches Alex’s hands in his own and brings them down near their laps. John’s barely a breath away from the other man at this point. 

Alex’s hands are a clammy mess. John tests a theory by gently caressing up Alex’s wrist, the skin is cool against John’s warm palms. Alex’s whole arm is a mess of goosebumps and John isn’t sure now if Alex is shaking from fear, or shivering from the cold. 

John moves his two-handed grip on Alex’s hands to just his left hand. With his right he reaches over Alex and across his bed, grappling at Alex’s duvet. He tugs it towards the pair and manages to wrap it around his roommate’s shoulders. He has to do it with one hand as Alex now seems to have a death grip on his other hand. 

Another flash of light and the monotonous bang of thunder above them, sends Alex’s chin to his chest once again. John takes it as small a win that Alex doesn’t drop his hand.

John very carefully works the duvet around Alex until it’s cocooning him. He then seats himself beside Alex, their knees and shoulders bumping off one another’s.

Over the next few minutes John counts the seconds in between the lightning and thunder aloud, reassuring Alex that as the gap widens, the storm gets further away. In between the waiting moments of silence, John keeps up a stream of conversation.

He’s trying to fill the void of quiet. Trying to have Alex focus on something that isn’t his own uncontrollable breathing. John doesn’t ask why Alex is afraid of storms, he doesn’t even speak at Alex. Instead John rambles. 

He tells Alex about a blanket fort he once made with his seven-year-old sister during a storm like this. How when the lights went out in the house, they lit their new flimsy home up with fairy lights. John tells Alex about how his second sister, who was only three years younger than John, had timidly asked to join them. He tells Alex that the older sister, Martha, didn’t mind storms, it was the darkness that got to her.

John tells him about the shadow puppet show they created with torches while they waited for the storm to pass. How his youngest sister, Mary, had a gift for creating animals with her hands. While all Laurens could muster was the classic bunny ears shadow.

John’s so engrossed with his rant that he forgets for a moment who he’s speaking to. Without meaning to, he even tells Alex about his own fear that night. That while one of his sisters was afraid of the storm; the other the dark; John was most afraid for their dad and second oldest brother. 

They’d been at a concert, he tells Alex. It was near midnight when their car had arrived back at the manor. His sisters had fallen asleep snuggling together in their lopsided fort. But John couldn’t stop pacing until he heard the door open and saw both of them were safe. It’s only when he mentions it was the roads he’d been worried about. that John’s brain catches up with him.

He’d almost admitted something too personal, something he did not want Alexander Hamilton of all people to know. 

As John’s voice trails off mid-sentence, his mind trying to work out how to shift the topic in a way that won’t make it seem forced, so Alex won’t push, John realises the other man has gone silent.

Hamilton’s breathing is normal. He’s stopped crying, stopped shaking. He’s still holding John’s hand but not as fiercely. When John turns to get a better look at his roommate he realises Alex is staring at him. He’s staring at John with this unfounded intensity. It’s so unnerving that John has to glance away for a moment. 

Its Alex’s signature calculating glare. Jefferson once described it as Alex’s ‘undressing stare’. It’s like his mind can pick you a part with his gaze, like he’s examining all your pieces and finding what he loves and hates about you before you even get a chance to comment on the matter. It’s something that terrifies John.

A moment of silence passes between the two. Slowly Alex draws his hands back, tucking his arms around his waist and under the duvet. Alex flicks his head then, looking away from John and towards their bedroom door.

“I- uh, Look I’m not- it’s not that-” Alex’s voice is barely a raspy whisper. He struggles to get any point across, and John can hear the strain in his words. John can also hear the words he’s not saying. 

“You don’t need to explain yourself.” John cuts him off, ending the poor guy’s frustration.

Alex doesn’t make a move to get off the ground, so John just stays there. Keeping some kind of contact between the two. He knows sometimes it takes a while, before you can move after something like this. Despite his disdain for Hamilton, he won’t leave him cowering on the floor alone.

“Why?” Alex mutters after another minute of silence. He’s managed to sit up straights, his back curving against the side of his bed. He’s pulled the duvet more around himself, probably trying to warm up.

John just tilts his head in confusion, twisting his neck just enough that he can shoot Alex a puzzled look. 

“Why did you- I mean… why are you…” Alex is gesturing with one of his hands that is now poking through the duvet cocoon. He’s waving furiously at John, or more specifically at the fact that John was sitting on the floor at, John glances at the clock, half one in the morning, comforting his roommate. 

John peers down at his hands which he’s intertwined in his lap. He didn’t really think about it. He just jumped into action when he noticed Hamilton. It was like…

“You reminded me of my sister.” He says the words before he’s even thought them.

The answer seems to baffle Alex even more. He watches Hamilton try to connect enough dots in his head so that the situation will make sense. He can even make out in the dim light, the point at which Alex decides he won’t figure it out tonight.

“Thank you.” Hamilton mutters, averting his gaze from John as he does so.

John lets himself smile for the first time since he woke up.

“Don’t mention it.”

Another thirty or so seconds pass and just as Laurens is about to suggest they try sleep; Alex speaks up again.

“You woke up crying earlier. I just about noticed, with everything…” 

John does his best to swallow around the lump in his throat that has just popped up from the statement. He assumed Alex hadn’t noticed his little episode.

“Uh yeah, just a stupid nightmare. I guess storms bring out that sort of thing.” He does his best to play it off, but he can feel Alex’s eyes on him as John stubbornly stares at the edge of the bed in front of them. The last thing John needs right now is for Alex to spot something on John’s face that he’s too tired to hide. 

Alex doesn’t push though. He lets the topic drop and slowly climbs onto his feet until he’s sitting on the edge of his bed. John thinks the retreat is because he hasn’t pushed Alex about what just happened. Hamilton hates not knowing things, but it’s clear even he gets that some things can’t be asked about.

John follows his lead and crawls over to his own bed. He gets under the covers but stays sitting for a moment, watching what Hamilton will do next.

“Goodnight John.” 

Alex doesn’t make a move to lie down as he says it, but John gets the feeling it’s his roommates’ way of saying he doesn’t need to be babysat anymore. It’s weird to hear his first name coming from Alex’s mouth.

“Goodnight Alexander.”

Neither of them sleep for a long time after that. John’s too afraid that if he closes his eyes again, he’ll be back staring at rising water and fading bubbles. He doesn’t move again though. He doesn’t want Alex to know he’s still awake.

He can’t check the time, but he guesses close to an hour passes before he hears Alex lie down. Even then he can’t be sure when the other man actually drifts off to sleep. John isn’t even sure when he nods off. It’s only when his eyes crack open and sunlight is pouring through the crack in the curtains that he realises he must have fallen asleep at some point.

The pair go about their usual morning routine. At first, they don’t say anything to each other. It’s awkward and tense and in a completely new way than their usual hostility. It’s more like a blanket of suspense is hanging above their heads.

Eventually they both must head towards their lecture. They awkwardly leave together, they usually time it differently. They usually make sure they don’t end up walking together. This morning though, it feels weird to do it on purpose.

They don’t mention the events of the night before. Instead, as they descend the stairs of the dorm building and Alex eventually breaks the silence, no shock really that it’s him that does so, they end up finally speaking about their essay.

They make a plan for when to work on the essay, how they’ll split what they’re going to do, and they even discuss what essay topics they want to avoid, and which ones interest them. John is surprised to realise that they both have similar thoughts on the topics they want to pick. 

The conversation seems to flow so easily between them when it’s a topic in which they both agree on. John doesn’t even notice the ten minutes pass as they walk across campus and arrive at their lecture hall. 

He notices a similar bewildered look on Alex’s face when he too realises that they have reached their destination so abruptly. They end up delivering an awkward goodbyes to one another as they both make their way to their usual spots in the lecture hall, their seats as far from one another as possible.

It feels odd to do so. John’s not sure why. Burr gives him a baffled look as he sits beside them, he’s noticed John’s arrival at the lecture door hasn’t been alone. 

Burr’s not nosey like Jefferson though and doesn’t ask. Just raises an eyebrow in query before the lecturer starts speaking.

It’s hard for Laurens to focus for once. He clicks the voice recorder on his phone on as per usual and decides he’ll allow himself to zone out for once. He’ll have to listen back to write up his notes later anyways,

As the voice of the lecturer fazes in and out of John’s current line of thought, he thinks back on the night before. How small Alex had looked, how close his roommate had come to asking John the questions he could never answer and how soft Alex’s hands had felt in his own.

_A rose by any other name would smell as sweet_

John had never been a big Shakespeare fan, but as his thoughts of Alexander begin to mutate and change, he’s starting to relate a lot with the famous Romeo and Juliet couple. If John had any other name in the world that wasn’t Laurens, maybe Alex would have looked at his flower, instead of the thorns on his stem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah!! Thank you guys for your comments on my last chapter. They were beyond sweet! They definitely helped me in getting this chapter done, it was a particularly tricky one. After eight chapters I wanted something like this to be written as well as my amateur ass can manage. Hope you enjoyed!


	10. Celebration!

Why was he awake? It’s a Sunday, it’s… nine in the morning. He didn’t have an alarm set until ten. John was letting himself sleep in today.

John glances across the room and sees Hamilton is also groggily waking up. The pair had been brainstorming the night before for their project and it had been well past midnight when they finished up.

It takes John a second to realise it wasn’t an alarm that had woken him up, it’s a banging on their bedroom door.

“You expecting anybody?” John groans, mushing his face back against his pillow, trying to block out the now persistent banging. It was probably Lafayette stopping by, the dude could be obnoxiously loud.

“No.” Hamilton sighs, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He was having the same thought process as his roommate and was preparing a slew of insults to fling at Lafayette for waking him up. The knocking gets louder and more aggressive as Hamilton reaches for the door handle.

“I’m coming, I’m coming, Calm down Laf-”

The woman standing outside their door is definitely not a six-foot-tall eccentric French man. This woman has curly brown hair that slips past her shoulders. She’s wearing a floral print red dress with black tights and as her brown eyes lock with Hamilton’s, he feels himself gulp.

The woman is gorgeous, pure conventional beauty mixed with modern art. Her gaze is fierce though. She looks Alexander up and down like he’s a piece of meat, and she doesn’t seem at all impressed with what she sees.

“Is Jack here?” Her tone is condescendingly sweet and rehearsed, like she’s been plotting the exact line for days. She folds her arms across her chest and raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

“Hello? Earth to short boy. Is Jack here?”

Hamilton’s shakes his head like he’s in a daze. He’s way too confused after just waking up… and who the hell is Jack?

“Uh no. It’s just myself and John here.” Alex’s words come out a pitch higher than he’d like. He also blames the voice crack completely on the fact that his throat is parched from sleeping.

She rolls her eyes at him like he’s just stated the dumbest thing possible and promptly bulldozes past him and into his room.

“Hey, wait, you can’t just come in here!” Alex spins around to argue with the girl but her attention is now completely focused on Alex’s roommate.

John has sat up during the encounter and as soon as she bursts into the room, he lets out a surprised…

“Maria? What the hell are you doing here?” John’s expression is a combination of disbelief and joy as he clambers out of bed.

She lets out a laugh, her whole demeanour changing as the pair embrace each other. She’s completely relaxed now, giddy laughter flowing from her lips. She doesn’t seem at all perplexed that John is only wearing a pair of long boxers.

“What am I doing here? Do you really have to ask Birthday boy?” Her tone is mocking, and she taps her finger on his nose as she speaks.

It’s John’s birthday? He hadn’t mentioned it once the night before. Although, Alex supposes it’s not something that really would have came up. How does your roommate’s birthday arrive without you being aware though? I guess the answer to that, the two of you aren’t friends.

“Oh Maria, you didn’t” John lets out a low groan that transitions to laughter half-way through. “I told you, no plans this year. Please tell me you did not-”

“Drive eight hours, stay in a motel, google search things to do in Kansas City? Yes, yes I did” She sounds smug as she speaks, her energy now leaving her bouncing on the balls of her feet as she waits for John’s reaction.

“You’re insane.” But he’s grinning like a fool as he says it.

“And you’re not even dressed. Go! Shower!” She pushes him towards the en suite before plopping herself down on his desk chair, her feet kicking up onto the table without a second thought.

It’s only at this point that Alexander realises he’s still standing in the doorway holding onto the door’s handle in shock. What the hell just happened? He awkwardly shuts the door with a quiet click.

He walks around the woman like she’s some kind of wild animal that could pounce. Alex has fought savage dogs before, this felt no different. As the shower buzzes to life one door away, the woman, Maria, seems to be scrolling through her phone, actively ignoring Hamilton. 

She doesn’t seem at all intimidated that she’s in a place she’s never been before, in a room with a man she’s never met. She looks more at home in the room than Alex. He still feels like a fraud sometimes studying in this college.

“See something you like?” 

Alex had gotten so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed her flick her attention from her phone to him, catching him blatantly gawking at her.

His brain hadn’t been going down that particular train of thought whatsoever though. She’s attractive and all, but Alex feels himself on a bit of man hunt at the moment. He’d had enough of women for a while after his last relationship…

“Yeah actually, cool phone.”

He gestures to her Pixel 3 as he says it. It was a phone he’d wanted himself. Despite the fact the Washington’s would have gladly got it for him, Alex couldn’t quantify the justice in spending so much money on a phone ,when the cheap android he has in his pocket does the same things for a fraction of the price.

She seems amused by his answer. Her mouth quirks into a sly grin and she tilts her head, seemingly studying him further. The head tilt is eerily similar to the one John does when he’s confused. 

Alex doesn’t want to think about the fact that he’s actually retained the micro bits of information about John that he witnesses every day.

She lets out a distrusting hum in response. Like she doesn’t quite believe what Alex is saying. She doesn’t push for conversation though, going back to her phone instead.

Alex would very much like to be back in bed asleep right now but lying back down just didn’t feel right while she was here. Neither did sitting at his desk or going on his phone. It was hardly like he could get changed either, not with her here. 

Alex feels himself trapped in his own room. Stuck in a weird limbo of just really wanting John to be finished in the shower and for this scary lady to leave. Alex should have just gone on his phone and ignored her, but as always, when Alexander Hamilton feels trapped, he talks.

“So… you and John are close?” He leans back against the desk as he speaks, folding his arms across his chest as he does his best to look nonchalant. 

She scoffs in response, shaking her head incredulously. Her lips purse together, and she doesn’t respond.

“Related?” He hazards a guess. Judging by how comfortable the two are and how far she travelled to see him.

This gets a humourless laugh from Maria. Her gaze flicks up, her head still tilted down. She glares over the phone at him.

“How about your just keep quiet?” She hisses, her tone full of spite.

“Excuse me?”

“Quiet, silent, shut the fuck up.” She gestures wildly with her arms “You understand?” 

The same condescending tone comes back in full swing as she asks the final question. Alexander has heard that tone before. He’s heard it at borders, at visa meetings, run ins with the police. It’s the tone people like to use with Alex when they think he’s some stupid immigrant.

“This is my room.” Alex bites back, straightening his back and lifting his chin at her. 

“How observant. Gold star.” Her attention goes back to her phone. Like Alexander isn’t even worth her time.

“You can’t just come in here and-”

“And what?” Her eyes widen in an attempt to look innocent. In a flash she’s kicked her legs off the table and is standing in front of Alexander, almost nose to nose. 

She’s about three inches shorter than Alex but she’s no less intimidating when she squares up to him.

“I’m not going to fight a woman.” He gulps, not sure how the situation has escalated so quickly.

“How noble.” She’s smirking now. A hand caressing the collar of Alex’s creased t-shirt. She looks like she’s ready to tear him apart.

“A place to eat better be the first place you looked up cause I’m starving.” John calls as he exits the bathroom. He’s gotten dressed and is currently scrunching his hair in a towel.

“Of course you’re thinking of food.” Maria is by John’s side in a second. The coldness is gone, replaced with the same cheery face and energy she’d had when she first entered the room.

She’s a completely different person with John in the room. 

“What? It’s morning, it’s normal to be thinking of breakfast.” Laurens doesn’t seem to notice that Alex is boring holes in his friend’s back. He reaches for a leather jacket and shrugs it on over his white t-shirt. He reminds Alex of a character out of Grease or some equally cheesy 70’s film.

“Pancake place twenty minutes from here. Think you can hold out until then?” 

“For pancakes? Obviously.”

Laurens is different now too. Alex has only seen the side to him that’s cut off and cold. He’s only seen Laurens as a person he hates. It’s world breaking to watch him interact with someone he’s so comfortable around. For a moment Alex sees himself and Lafayette in the room. Not a care in the world, always on the same page. Alex suddenly feels very out of place in his room.

“Right c’mon then birthday boy, we’re burning daylight.” She grabs his arm and without even a glance at his roommate, Laurens is gone. The door slamming shut behind him.

The realisation of the scene that just occurs doesn’t hit Alex for another five minutes. Five minutes that he spends pacing the length of their room, trying to piece together what exactly it is he’s feeling.

This Maria woman obviously knew who Alexander was. Hence, the less than welcoming introduction between the two. This had to mean that Laurens has already spoken about Alexander to her. Going off her behaviour, she obviously didn’t like what she heard.

It’s clear from the way she mocked even his ability to understand English that she’s a blatant racist. She mightn’t be Caucasian but it’s obvious her family grew up in America with all the luxury entitlements that accompanies those with US citizenship. 

She had looked at him like he was a piece of filth. Hamilton also took note of how she always stepped between the two roommates. Like she didn’t want Alexander anywhere near John, like Alex was going to dirty him or something… 

Oh, now things were starting to make sense. She wasn’t just a racist. This woman must be in love with John. Why else would she travel eight hours on his birthday to spend time with him? Why else would she be so possessive over him? Now her precious John is rooming with a filthy, unnatural bisexual. It must disgust her.

Alex lets out a deep groan as he falls back on his bed, the base of the palms of his hands rubbing roughly against his closed eye lids. Just as he was thinking John and he were becoming somewhat amiable, he’s reminded that John will never be his friend. 

Sure, they could work through this assignment together. They’ll probably even get the highest grade they can. They’re both clearly at the top of their class. But outside of that, what Alex is, John will never accept that. Never see past that. 

The thought makes Hamilton sad for a moment, a pang of emotion cooling in his stomach and tugging at his heart. It’s quickly washed away by a stream of anger. The cooling is replaced with the heat of resentment. Alex will not let himself feel bad for who he is and who he loves. 

Jerks like Laurens are more than welcome to exist with their views, but Alex will be unapologetically himself. It’s John’s fault they can’t be friends. It’s John’s fault that they’re so incompatible. 

As his mind rants and rave, a text notification shakes him back to reality. He clicks his lock screen on to see it’s a news notification. Hamilton makes sure to keep up to date with all political movements, bills and scandals. 

As his eyes scan over the notification, he finishes his thought from a moment before, it’s John Lauren’s father’s fault that people like Alexander will have to fight to exist, to have rights. 

\--------------------------------

“I thought he’d be taller.” Maria admits as she takes a long sip of her Starbucks coffee. They’d passed through the drive thru on the way to breakfast. 

“What? Why? I told you he was shorter than me.” John questions, spinning the wheel as he parks his car outside the café.

“I don’t know. I just imagined someone as much as a jackass as him to be… larger?” 

John shoots her a raised eyebrow of confusion as his response. 

“Okay saying it out loud makes me sound stupid. I guess it’s true what they say about shorter people being more spiteful.”

“Well, you certainly are.” Laurens teases as they both clamber out of the car.

“You’re hilarious Laurens. He was so two faced too. You should have heard him too! As soon as you go off to shower, he’s trying to be all polite. As if I wouldn’t know how much of a dick he is to you.”

“He’s gotten better in the last week.” John defends.

“Oh, don’t even Jack. You’re way too soft. Just because he’s not being a complete douche all of a sudden, doesn’t make him a good person. He’s made your college life way more difficult than it needs to be. For no other reason than he’s a self-righteous, victim entitled little shit.”

John can’t help but grimace as he holds the door open for her and she storms past him. Maria could really hold a grudge, especially against someone who’s wronged a friend of hers. It was something he loved about her, and something that terrified him.

“Can we talk about something else? Like anything else?” Laurens pleas as they find themselves a booth by the window to slide into. 

Maria lets out a less than agreeable hum as she fiddles with one of the menus on the table.

“Fine. But only because it’s your birthday.”

“Thank you.” 

“Now, the real question of the day.” She smiles at John over her menu, a questionable look behind her eyes. “Chocolate sauce on my pancakes, or maple syrup?”

“You’re going to end up complaining there’s too much sauce either way. Just get the bacon pancakes, you know you always prefer the saltier options.” john jokes, lightly referencing her own salty behaviour this morning.

“You’re so lucky it’s your birthday.” Her eyes have now narrowed into slits and she’s glaring at him across the table. “and lucky that you’re absolutely right. Bacon is always the answer.”

The giggles that follow her sentence are contagious and John finds the morning passing quickly, laughter and jokes flying between the two friends as they dig into their food. It’s only been a month since John has seen Maria, but it’s felt like so much longer.

The two have been friends their whole life. Her father, James Reynolds, has been a friend of Henry Laurens for years. The pair were quite the political duo. Which makes the existence of Maria and John questionable. The pair were the complete opposite of their fathers.

John was blessed to have Maria growing up. Their own questions of sexuality, religion and political opinions might have been internalised beyond reach had they not had each other to question and confide in. Maria was one of the few people on this earth that can completely relate to John. They both know what it’s like to be the black sheep of the family.

Their fathers have always been very supportive of their friendship too. Only because they were ignorant of the pair’s conversations though. It was clear both their fathers thought the two to be a perfect match for one another. A political marriage so strong, it would secure their fathers beliefs for many more generations.

Maria’s father, as far as John knew, might still hold that sentiment. Might still be holding out for his daughter to marry his ideal son-in-law. John’s father knows the truth though. Even if he doesn’t accept it. John has ruined that fairy-tale for his father, it was the first of many that he ruined.

“After the aquarium we’re heading to this top-notch fancy place to eat, you’d hate it if it wasn’t for the fact that I checked the menu and it has Pollo Guisado. Which I know, I know, sounds dodgy being cooked in America, but the reviews for it were all great, and…Jack? Are you even paying attention?” 

John slowly blinks as he realises, he’d completely zoned out on what his best friend was saying.

“Uh… aquarium and food?”

She rolls her eyes at his attempt at feigning attention.

“Forget it. I’ve the day planned anyways. I’ll just drag you through it.”

“Thanks?” He half questions, amused by the pout forming on Maria’s face.

He takes a moment to take in the slight tension in her shoulders, the way she’s fiddling with the edge of her napkin. She’s nervous. Laurens really wishes there was a way to slap yourself without anyone noticing. He could be a real idiot sometimes.

He knows his best friend like he knows his own mind. Only she’d plan the perfect, most mind-blowing day for her best friend, who she knows everything about, and feel insecure about it.

“It sounds great Ems.” He grabs her hand across the table as he says it, drawing her attention to him. “I’m sorry for zoning out. I just… I was realising how much I’ve missed you in the last month.” 

The look of reassurance and glee that filters across her face brings a warmth to Lauren’s chest. Yeah, he’d definitely missed her more than he’d let himself admit.

“Sap.” She mocks, with no real malice behind it. 

They go to leave, and she blatantly pushes him towards the exit as she slaps their bill on the table with a generous tip, leaving no room for argument.

“Don’t even think about thinking about it Laurens. Birthday boys do not pay for their day out.”

She insists the same at the aquarium when she gets them their tickets and audio tour tapes. The place is beyond impressive. It’s filled with all kinds of sea life. John finds himself taking countless pictures, his fingers itching to draw some of the more exotic creatures and their habitats. They walk through glass corridors that are built through some of the exhibits, the different fish and sea life swimming around and above them. John finds himself twirling around, his face tilted back to get a better look at all of it.

Maria laughs at him good naturedly, snapping photos of his awestruck face and gets some pretty good shots of his silhouette against some of the brighter exhibits, the shadows of fish looming behind him. She always had a way with photography.

Just as John thinks they’re at the end of the tour, they turn into the last room of the aquarium before they loop back to the gift shop. It’s a whole exhibit dedicated to turtles. Maria conveniently left that part out when she was selling the tour to him. No wonder she wouldn’t let him look at the brochure.

He’s speechless as he walks around. He feels like he’s dreaming as countless races of turtle swim up and around him. He takes his time reading all the information on the walls, it’s the first exhibit he’s in that he doesn’t find his mind drifting off as he reads through all the text. Maria has done her research because as John spends about twenty minutes slowly losing his mind at how incredible this place is, the time to feed the turtles comes around.

He watches with barely contained joy as an employee throws in all kinds of turtle foods, the creatures responding by gently racing one another around the exhibits and eagerly biting at the floating bits as they descend in their tanks.

By the time John is ready to leave, he finds Maria has already moved on to the gift shop. She’s holding a bag that looks crammed with stuff and grinning at him like she’s pulled off a notorious scheme.

In reality, she’d gone ahead of him and ransacked the turtle themed part of the gift shop. The bag had a turtle plushie; a turtle pin; a turtle keychain; pen; notebook; miniature. Any gift shop knick knack you can think of, and Maria has found a turtle themed version of it. 

They laugh at how over the top the whole thing is, and they leave the place with their arms wrapped around one another, cackling and shoving each other. Laurens had almost forgotten what it was like to be this giddy and ridiculous with someone.

Lunch is spectacular. Maria has found the only place in Kansas, or maybe event the state, that has actual authentic Puerto Rican food and it’s absolutely delicious. John hasn’t had food like this since his mother passed away. 

The taste and texture bring back memories to John that he wasn’t even aware he’d forgotten. Maria says nothing when he tears up a bit at the first few bites, just squeezes his hand under the table. She only relaxes when he assures her it’s one of the most delicious dishes he’d ever had.

As the evening swings around, she surprises him with his own friends. Apparently, she’d added Burr on Facebook as soon as John had mentioned the man was his friend. Not only that, but as a shock to John, Maria and Jefferson already knew one another.

“Well yeah, I’m surprised you never got friendly with him. He was at a lot of the same events as us when we were kids. Although, I suppose your dad didn’t go to all the same ones as mine did.” She explains, amused by his confusion.

“I can’t believe you didn’t mention once throughout the week that your birthday was coming up! Twenty-one years of age and everything. You didn’t think that was important?” Jefferson interrogates, sitting into the booth Maria and John had picked in the local arcade.

She’d told him they were going there for some fun and to break some of the high scores on the games. She’d failed to tell him that Madison, Jefferson and Burr would meet them there as well.

Laurens helplessly shrugs at the accusation. 

“I don’t usually make a big deal about it. It’s usually just a family celebration” It’s only half the truth. John has a very good reason why he hates his birthday, why he likes for it to pass as a normal day.

He let it slide this year. He let Maria drag him away on a magical day of catching up because he needed it. He needed today, to spend a day with her. But this day is always painful, always filled with such regret and a shadow from the past. There’s a reason his dad doesn’t send him so much as a “have a good day” on his birthday. John didn’t deserve anything good on this day.

Maria must notice his internal spiral into self-depreciation because she instantly changes the subject.

“Please tell me one of you fellas knows how to play the FPS over there.” Her hand gestures to one of the physical guns shooting games, the one with zombies painted all over the side of the console. “-because Jack sucks at any type of shooter games and it’s much more fun to beat someone in person and not just the high score on the title screen”

Jefferson is instantly bemused by her challenge and quickly forgets he’s nagging John.

“Oh, you’re so on. I happen to be a master at the game.” A smug grin plasters on his face as the pair head off towards the game. 

“He really isn’t.” Madison mutters, looking pre-tired as he watches Jefferson bouncing his way towards the gun. “I better go make sure he doesn’t smash the game when he dies at the first round.” 

Madison stands to Jefferson side and seems to be lightly coaching him as Maria starts to kick his butt, and the zombies butt, as they fight through the virtual apocalypse.

“Maria messaged me a few days ago, about her plan, about all of this. I didn’t really have much time to get into the city with the short notice but, I hope this is alright.” 

Lauren’s head spins from looking over his shoulder at the shooter game to Burr who is sitting across from him. Aaron has pushed a small ribbon packaged parcel across the table to John.

“Aaron, you didn’t have to get me anything.” John exclaims, his eyes wide as his fingers caresses the brown paper packaging. 

“It’s only something small. I wasn’t really sure what you’d like but... I noticed you never wore one so I thought it might be something you could use.”

John gently unravels the ribbon as Burr rambles. His fingers delicately pushing back the wrapping. Beyond his siblings and Maria, John couldn’t remember the last time someone had given him a birthday present. He refused to tell any of his high school friends when his birthday was.

The wrappings push back to reveal an elegant silver rimmed watch. It’s simple, classy and has fancy lines instead of numbers. There’s a brand name on it but John was never one for watches and has no idea how prestigious the name is. It’s easy to tell from the quality of the item though that the watch was expensive.

“It’s…it’s beautiful man, really.” Laurens grins across the table, glancing at the pleased and relieved look on Burr’s face as John clasps it around his wrist. It fits neatly and he likes the weight of it on his wrist.

“I always meant to buy one, I just got lazy with having my phone I guess.” 

“I’m glad you like it.” Burr replies, voice as polite as ever. But John can hear the delight behind his tone. Burr was getting a bit easier to read with each conversation the pair share.

The rest of the night is spent floating through the arcade, jumping from game to game. Admittedly, Laurens sucks at most of them. He’s not the best when it comes to hand eye co-ordination. However, he whoops everyone’s ass at dance dance revolution. The only person that can ever challenge the same levels as he is Maria. The pair had spent hours playing the game back home at their local arcade. The easily smash most of the high scores in the game, or at least the ones for the dances they like the most. They put the name of the high score winner as JM, just like they did back home.

It’s late when Laurens heads back to the dorms with the guys. Maria says her goodbyes. She’s booked a room in a hotel near the campus. John walks her to her car. his friends hang back as the pair say their goodbyes.

She lunges forward at him when she reaches her car, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. He responds with squeezing firmly around her waist. He’d missed her hugs, missed the smell of her vanilla shampoo he could always smell off her.

“You better call me during the week. Keep me informed on how things are going.” She wags a finger jokingly in his face as she leans back from their embrace. 

“Yes ma’am.” He teases, saluting her.

“And I’ll be seeing you at Halloween, yes? You’re not getting out of partying with me”

He groans as he’s reminded for the tenth time today of her invitation to go all the way to her college for Halloween weekend to get shitfaced with her and her friends.

“I’ll see. I’ll probably be flat out with college assignments. It’ll be mid-term and no doubt the professors will swamp us with work.” He tries to reason with her.

She just waves her hand undeterred as she slips into her car. As she pulls out of her driving spot, she rolls down her window.

“No excuses Laurens. Don’t make me drag you there.” 

He flips her off as she drives out of the car park, she easily returns the favour out her rolled down window. They both laugh at themselves as the other turns out of view. 

John gives himself a full two seconds to process she’s gone again for another month, before he makes his way back over to his friends.

“I still can’t believe you know Maria, but somehow didn’t have the pleasure of knowing me.” Jefferson moans as they walk across campus. 

“She’s a lovely young woman, a great friend to have.” Madison comments, ignoring Jefferson’s confusion.

“Yeah, she’s the best.” John smiles, his tone a hint on the giddy side.

Burr and Jefferson share a smirk between them.

“The best huh?” Burr questions, at the same moment that Jefferson puts his arm around Laurens, drawing his friend near and remarks “just a great friend?”

John eyes the pair up warily, they’ve both managed to flank his sides.

“Yes, a friend. We’ve known each other since we were kids, she’s basically another sister to me.” John’s voice is firm and leaves no room for argument. His three friends however share a smug look.

Jefferson holds his hands up in mock surrender.

“Sure, sure, we believe you John.”

The smiles on their faces give John the opposite impression. 

John could do it now, he thinks. This was the perfect time to tell them. It was a natural moment, not one forced on his friends or shoehorned into a conversation.

_Actually… she’s not my type._

_I don’t really play for her team._

_I’m gay._

“Whatever, you guys are the worst.”

John tries not to cringe at his own words. 

He’ll tell them… eventually. When he knows they won’t go running to their families or the media with one of the juiciest stories in the current political sphere.

John’s phones buzzes and he flicks it open as he walks, his friends getting a step ahead of him as they tease one another about their performance at the arcade.

It’s a text from his eldest sister. She’s already called earlier to wish him a happy birthday, what could she want this late?

“ _I know this will suck for you to read, but I don’t want you to find out somewhere else or from someone else. Jack, you know I love you so much, all of us do. Don’t take this personally…okay? This is just the way he is, the way his party is. He still loves you. Also, I don’t support this either. The rest are too young to understand but I do. I love you big bro x_ ”

Martha has linked a news article to the bottom of her message. The headline is enough to bring John’s perfect day crashing down. He should have known the high he was on today would bring a new kind of low.

**Henry Laurens backs the conservative party’s move to abolish the 2015’s act to legalise same-sex marriage**

The opening paragraph describes how the party wants to make it a states decision if they want to allow the ‘unnatural’ joining of two same-sex people in the holy matrimony of marriage.

John can’t read past the first paragraph of bigoted and religious nonsense. All he really learns from it is that there’s going to be a slew of protests, debates and rallies on the matter in the coming months. With some kind of voting for the bill to be done in January. The next few months were going to be hell. 

John is suddenly very glad he kept his mouth shut during the last conversation. Now, more than ever, no one can know his secret. There’s never been a more volatile time for his father. Henry would never forgive his son if he ruined this for him. No matter how much John wanted the bill to fail, he couldn’t be the one to step in its way.

“John you alright?” Madison questions, noticing his friend has fallen back from the group.

“Yeah, just tired. I need to make a quick call actually; you guys go on ahead.”

Burr must see a change in John’s expression because he looks worried as they walk away, leaving John alone in the lane. But his friends don’t verbally question it. Just wave him goodnight and tell him to get back to the dorms safe.

As soon as they’re out of sight, John takes out his ID. His legal age now stamped across it. He glances at his phone and sees it’s not even eleven yet. 

Time for John to have his first legal drink. 

The bar is loud and packed. There’re three different bars serving in the building, different bartenders at each one. No one notices Laurens as he makes his way around, getting a shot at each, a pint the second time around. 

John’s too buzzed to notice it’s gone past midnight. Too dizzy to realise it’s the ten-year anniversary of the worst day of his life. It’s not the first year he’s been drunk for it, and it won’t be the last. Tonight however, he’s drinking his sorrow away for two reasons.

He gets kicked out around two in the morning as the place closes. His movements are sluggish and wobbly. He walks zig zagged down the walkways through campus. He reaches the dorms around three. He knows logically it shouldn’t have taken him an hour to get here. Maybe the five-minute sit down on the bench had been longer than he thought.

Or maybe the puking he’d done in some shrubbery had taken fifteen minutes to recover from, and not five. Whatever, John’s brain is too scattered to think straight. Not that it ever thinks straight. He giggles at his own joke as he unlocks the front door of the building and creeps upstairs to his room.

He grips onto the banister as he ascends and tomorrow, he’ll wonder how he made it up the stairs without falling to his death. Somehow, he makes it to his room in one piece. 

Surprisingly, the lights are off and it’s dark. That soon changes when he walks nosily into his desk, letting out a yelp. The light on Hamilton’s desk flickers on and his roommate glares blearily at him.

“Are you drunk?” He questions the swaying John.

The question seems hilarious to John. As if it wasn’t obvious. 

He laughs as he climbs into bed, just about kicking off his shows and throwing off his jeans and shirt. He usually sleeps in just his boxers anyways.

“Yup.” The word comes out louder than he means to, and it’s definitely slurred. 

“Where even let you in?” Alex groans, sitting up in bed to analyse his inebriated roommate. Was he going to have to turn Laurens on his side? He really didn’t want to find himself in a murder investigation if John chokes on his own vomit during the night.

“Everywhere, I’m a man now.” John sounds tipsy as hell as he mumbles through his sentence.

“You’re 21 today?” Alex asks in disbelief. Alex wouldn’t even be twenty until February. 

“Yesterday.” John is somehow sober enough to still be a smart ass.

“Take a year exploring the world or something between high school and college?” Hamilton finds himself asking, not sure why he’s even bothering to try have conversation with John. Maybe it’s because drunk John is much more bearable to talk to.

John nods softly, turning on his side and huddling under the covers, his face still to Alex’s side of the room. Alex can’t be sure if the man even understood his question though or is the nod an actual legitimate answer.

“Getting drunk on your 21st is terribly cliché Laurens.” Hamilton remarks, flicking his lamp off and pulling the covers back up around him. He needs to get back to sleep before he fully wakes up, otherwise he’ll be up most of the night. 

“Not a cliché if it’s a tradition.” John mutters into his pillow, his words barely audible.

“You’ve made it a tradition to get drunk on your birthday?” Hamilton asks as he lets out a yawn, his hand slipping under his pillow to grip at its edge as he moves to lay on his stomach.

“The day after.” John corrects him “easier this way.”

“What way? Easier how?”

“…”

“John?”

His roommate doesn’t answer Alex though. After a couple of minutes, the sounds of snores fill the room, echoing around Alex as they do every night. 

Why was what easier? What the hell was John even mumbling about. The mystery nags at Alex for a few minutes, but he’s too tired to really care. John’s also very drunk, he’s probably speaking in riddles that are just nonsense.

Hamilton doesn’t care why Laurens is drunk. He doesn’t care in the slightest. He especially doesn’t care when he gets out of bed to place a pillow behind his roommate after he hears shuffling and gets genuinely worried Laurens will turn on his back.

No, after all the articles he read and all the rants he had today about Henry and his disgusting bill…

Hamilton couldn’t give two shits about the guys son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this would be a short 3k chapter...it ended up at 6K :O I don't even know how.
> 
> I WROTE MOST OF THIS BETWEEN 2-4AM. IT IS 6AM WHERE I LIVE AS I POST THIS.  
> Please excuse any mistakes because I am half brain dead as I post this chapter, but too eager to leave it until tomorrow.
> 
> <3


	11. Helpless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING:  
> I have no warnings on my fic as a rule, I leave it open to anything really and warn people by not having warnings.  
> HOWEVER. Some of this chapter is very relevant to events happening in the real world at the minute and I want to put a warning here so that it doesn't shock or upset anyone who might have faced a similar scene, know someone who did, fears facing this or is someone who is rightfully distraught every time they see footage of a scene like the one depicted in this chapter.  
> SO WARNING: Chapter contains blatant racism and a racist police officer.

John wakes up just a few hours after he’d fallen asleep. Light is just barely peeking through the blinds and the sunrise is dimly lighting up his room. He gazes at the shadows on the wall for a moment, pondering if he could go back to sleep until this day has passed.

His phone tells him it’s only about seven in the morning. He instantly regrets checking it though, because now blinding light is burning through his eyelids and setting off an explosion of pain across his forehead. 

Right. He’d been drinking last night. The cotton mouth and the cold sweat suddenly make a lot more sense. He gently sits himself up in the bed. Instantly his vision blackens as his blood rushes to his head. It’s been a long time since he’s woken up after a night of drinking.

He’s not too badly hungover though. As he shivers his way out of bed and into the bathroom, he analyses his current state. They’re never like in the movies, hangovers. He’s not groaning and holding his head in agony, he’s just thirsty and feels like he’s grown a slimy second layer of skin.

He remedies both of these issues by downing a glass of water and dragging himself into the shower. The hot water washes away the layer of sweat and the stickiness of alcohol from his body. The shampoo gets rid of the specks of vomit in his hair and he grimaces as he remembers the shrubbery he’d ruined the night before.

Last night hadn’t been his proudest moment. Although given the day it is today, he could have done a lot worse. The memory of his sister’s text and the stupid article flitter back into his mind and John leans his forehead heavily against the cool tiles in the shower. 

He steadies himself as the water trickles down the drain, the pressure in the dorms was nothing like his shower at home. As he flicks the shower off and hobbles out onto the tiles, he’s reminded that he also really missed the heated floor back home in his ensuite. 

The mirror is fogged up from steam, so he doesn’t mind his reflection until he’s dried off and thrown on the jeans and shirt he’d brought in with him. 

As the mirror clears, he brushes through his curly hair. He’s grown it out again. It’s just starting to reach his mid-way down his neck, the ends of some of the longer bits brushing against his shoulder as he tilts his head to the left and right.

He’s not bothered to spend time drying it, so John just swoops it back into a ponytail as per usual. It was starting to look bushy again, but John couldn’t find it in himself to cut it. His mother had always liked it long. She’d loved brushing it. His father had always wanted it shorter, _more manly._

He shakes his head, watching the sad reflection of himself copy the movements. Today wasn’t about his father. It wasn’t about his bill or his opinions of John. Today wasn’t even about John. He wouldn’t be going to any classes, wouldn’t be working on any projects. Today was the one day of the year that was about her. The one day he really let himself think about her.

This year he’s travelling to the Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin, a whole six-hour drive away. It’ll be past midnight when he gets back here. Twelve hours of driving and he’ll need a few hours to explore, to draw, to find a gift shop. 

He better get going.

\----------------------------

Alex wakes up alone in his room. Somehow, the probably very hungover John Laurens, has beaten him to the shower. Or that’s what he thinks initially. However, a quick glance at the open bathroom door tells Hamilton his roommate has already left.

His bedside clocks blinks that it’s 8am, their lecture wasn’t for another hour. What on earth was John doing that he had to be gone so early? Maybe he was embarrassed from the night before? Whatever the reason, Hamilton gets about getting ready for their English lecture. 

It’s strange not having Laurens in the room to tiptoe around and bump into. The room seems so much bigger when he’s alone in it. Perhaps, John had woken up early to visit the pharmacist, to get something for his head? 

It’s only when Alex is stuffing his laptop and chargers into his college bag that he notices Laurens’ desk. His laptop and English book are left sitting on it. Why wouldn’t John bring them with him? His coat is gone, as his other usual stuff. Why would he run off for his lecture without the two most vital items for it?

He’s half a mind to bring them with him and drop them at John’s desk, wherever he’ll be. That is until Alex realises that this is John, not Lafayette, that he’s thinking of. Why on Earth would Hamilton go out of his way to do something like that for the forgetful idiot?

Alex feels a pang in his chest as he briefly remembers the sorry state Laurens had been in the night before. No. He wasn’t getting involved. Alex has more than enough to worry about. 

For one thing, thanks to his roomie’s father, the Pride Society has some serious canvassing and protesting to do in the following months. Alex is better off pouring his thoughts and energy into that than worrying about John Laurens.

The sentiment makes him feel a bit better as he leaves his room, locking the door behind him. Lafayette is waiting on the staircase for him as usual and Alex forgets all about John as they chat and banter as they make their way across the campus. 

The thoughts of Laurens only come catapulting back when Alex goes to make his usual sneer across the lecture hall at John. Only then does he notice Madison and Burr sitting by themselves, short a man.

Did Laurens hurt himself last night? Did he wake up and realise he needed to take a trip to the hospital? Or maybe it was a family thing. Maybe Laurens had to run off to some emergency. Hamilton only turns his attention back to the lecturer when he accidentally makes awkward eye contact with Burr. 

Aaron Burr is a hard man for Alex to describe or give an opinion on. He likes the man sure, but every conversation with the man feels distant and unproductive. Like no matter how hard Alex tries to either get to know the man, or get to know his stances on topics, Burr will manage to deflect and keep himself aloof.

The rest of the lecture is filled with side glances across the room to see if Laurens shows up and dealing with the feeling of Burr’s gaze burning into the back of his head every time Alex is actually trying to listen and pay attention to the front of the room.

Lafayette is mid-rant about their English assignment’s deadline when Burr interrupts the pair. They’d just walked out of the lecture hall and were heading to the nearby café when Burr and Madison approach them.

“Hamilton.” 

“Well if it isn’t Aaron Burr, sir.”

Aaron rolls his eyes at the formalities, giving Alex a measured look that was clearly insinuating to _‘stop being childish’_. 

“Always a pleasure Alexander. Tell me, do you’ve any idea why John wasn’t at this lecture.” 

Alex isn’t sure he likes the tone that Burr uses on him. It comes off accusatory. As though Hamilton himself did something to throw Laurens off going to his first lecture of the week.

“How would Alex know? He’s hardly his PA.” Lafayette butts in. Obviously picking up on the same tone as Alexander.

“He is his roommate though. Was John sick this morning or something?” Madison enquires, his tone as even and calming as always.

Alex scoffs at such a question. The pair don’t seem impressed with the response.

“I’d be surprised if he wasn’t sick. He was a mess last night.” Alex tries hard not to, but his tone comes off incredibly smug as he folds his arms across his chest, a smirk now residing on his face.

The feeling is quickly wiped away though at the confused and worried looks on the men’s faces.

“What are you talking about Hamilton?” Burr questions, the use of his surname feels different coming from Burr.

“Well he stumbled in around three in the morning. Whatever party you lot were throwing for him must have been a wild one.”

The perturbed looks on their faces bring a chill to Alex’s stomach. Why did John’s best friends look like they had no idea what he was talking about.

“He was drunk when he got home?” Madison is biting the inside of his cheek while he waits for the answer.

“Yeah… didn’t one of you walk with him?”

The pair share a distressed look before turning back to Lafayette and himself.

“Thanks Alexander, you’ve been very helpful.” With the clearly dismissive adieu, the two men brush past Hamilton and towards another part of campus. 

“With what? What happened last night?” Both Burr and Madison ignore Alex’s hollering. They don’t even hesitate in their determined marches.

Alex stares off at them for a moment before he notices Lafayette sizing him up. His half-brother has his arms crossed, an eyebrow raised, is leaning on one leg and looking very worriedly at Alexander.

“What?” Alex tightens his ponytail as he glances away from the, somewhat, intimidating scrutiny his brother was putting him under.

“Tell me _mon petit lion_ , why you look so concerned about Mr John Laurens?” Laf wraps an arm around Alex’s shoulder as he speaks, looking smugly down at him. 

“I do not.” Even to Hamilton his retort sounds defensive. Lafayette doesn’t even dignify it with a response, just leans down more so Alex is forced to look him in the eyes. 

“Look, if Laurens is up to something, I want to know about it. For all I know he’s taken the day off to scheme or something.”

“Scheme?” Lafayette looks about ready to laugh.

“Yes!”

“I thought you two were passed your _petit_ prank war.”

“We are! But-” Alex trails off, at a loss on how to defend the diluted point he’s trying to make. Laf is also giving him the _‘I know you too well, don’t even try and lie to me bitch’_ look. Any argument dies on Hamilton’s tongue.

“He seemed weird last night is all. Unsettled. I thought at least he’d been with friends…” Alex can’t look Lafayette in the eyes as he says it. As he admits to himself the real reason he’s been fixating on John all morning.

Lafayette lets out a groan at Alex’s admission, wiping a hand across his face and rubbing tiredly at his eyes.

“ _Mon ami_ , your heart is too big. I usually love your empathy but don’t let it fool you. You have made it very clear this John Laurens is not a good person. Don’t let his pain manipulate you.” 

Alex sighs, playing with the zip of his hoodie as Lafayette rants. His friend was right. Alex may be worried, but that’s because Alex is a worrier. He hates to see anyone in trouble. Even someone like John Laurens.

“He has friends to worry about him.” Laf gestures to the road Madison and Burr have disappeared down. “You worry about your own stuff. Like how you haven’t eaten breakfast today!” 

The comment gets a laugh out of the tense Hamilton. His body relaxes as Lafayette drags him towards a waffle shop on campus. His thoughts moving away from where John is and instead towards if he should get cream with his waffles or not. 

The rest of the day is the usual blur of lectures and note taking. Laurens doesn’t show up to any of them and after acknowledging that fact, Alex lets his attention avert back to his studies.

His last lecture of the day is the only module he takes without Lafayette. Alex is just packing up his things as the professor wraps up his final point when he gets a text from the French man.

**Going to be late out, wait by my car x**

Car? Where did Laf think the two were going? They had a pride meeting on campus in an hour. Ah, of course, a meeting. Lafayette would be insistent he needs caffeine and will push for them to swing by the local Starbucks drive thru. Alex couldn’t understand the man’s obsession with the drinks there, Alex was more than happy with the drinks on campus.

He replies to Laf that he better not be too long as he makes his way out of the lecture hall and towards one of many car parks on campus. He finds Lafayette’s car in its normal spot and sits himself up on the hood, scrolling through news stories as he waits. 

Another Henry Laurens headline catches his eye, something about a rally he was hosting today. Maybe that’s where Laurens had gone. The thought was nauseating, to think John might saunter back into their room tonight having listened and participated in such hateful preaching. Alex’s thumb hovers above the article, fully intending to read through it and come up with counter points for the content. 

“Excuse me sir. What do you think you’re doing?” A gruff voice snaps Alex out of his theorizing. The sunlight silhouettes the shadowy shape of a buff man and after squinting at his phone for the last minute, it takes Alex a second to adjust and recognise who was speaking to him.

The man was pale, his white skin contrasted harshly against the all black outfit he was wearing. His hair was blonde and cut army style short. At first Alex is confused by the bulges popping out of the man’s clothing, but once the man steps out from the shade of a tree, it’s clear to see they’re pockets and holsters. The man speaking to him is in a full police uniform with an official badge on his breast to confirm it.

“Uh.” Alex is speechless for a moment, a rare occurrence. The question is so simple but seems so bizarre considering Alex was literally just sitting. He even glances around him, making sure it’s him the officer is questioning. It must be considering they’re the only ones around. That thought does nothing to ease the anxiety now knotting itself in Alex’s stomach.

“I’m just waiting for someone sir.” His eyes don’t leave the officers hands as he speaks. The larger man has one arm loosely hanging by his side, but his right hand is resting on his hip, just above his displayed pistol. 

“Do you usually wait for your friends perched on someone else’s nice car?” The tone is quiet but stern. Alex’s brain is already going through the list of possibilities for how this scene looks. Or at least how it looks in the eyes of a white police officer in modern day America. 

The car under Alex is nice. In fact, nice is too weak an adjective. The year-old BMW was Lafayette’s pride and joy. He’d bought it during their senior year of high school with the inheritance money he’d gotten from his parents will (Lafayette’s family had been extremely wealthy over in France.). It had cost more money than Hamilton’s mother had probably earned in her whole life.

Alex looks out of place sitting on it. He’s wearing his faded hoodie and scruffy fraying jeans. He probably looks like trouble with a capital T.

“Not my friend sir.” Hamilton makes sure to make an extra effort to be polite. “My half-brother. This is his car, I’m just waiting for him-”

“I’m going to have to ask you to get off the car bonnet.” The officer is walking closer now, he’s moved from the footpath to less than a metre from Alex.

Alex complies silently. Although he doesn’t want to, although his palms are starting to sweat, and his heart is starting to pound, the sound like a drum playing in his skull.

“Do you go here?” The cop interrogates him. The officer’s face is easy to read, and it currently reads as unimpressed. It’s like he’s not even hearing a word Alex is saying. His words mean nothing when the officer has already made up his mind on the immigrant in front of him.

“Yes Sir. I’m a law major.” The officer looks even less impressed.

“I’m sure then, you won’t mind showing me some identification. Like a student card.”

“Sir, have I done something wrong? Outside Kansas City, in this state, you can only ask for my ID if you believe I have committed a-”

“Don’t lecture me about the law boy. You think you know better than me?” The officer has gone from looking suspicious to peeved in a matter of seconds. For once, Alexander is regretting his inability to shut up.

“Sir, I’m just saying, I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s unlawful for you to-” Alex’s words die in his throat as in the blink of an eye, the barrel of a gun is pointing at his face. 

The officer’s hand is shaking ever so slightly, his face is a mask of anger, and when Alex looks more closely, delight. Alex suddenly feels less like a human being, and more like a mouse being toyed with by a cat. 

“I said. Show me your ID boy.” 

“Why are you pointing a gun at me.” Alex’s hands are up framing his face. They were quaking beside him, the fear breaking through his voice’s façade of calmness.

“I felt threatened by your tone. Not to mention you’re disobeying an officer.”

Hamilton bites his tongue before he lets loose a list of reasons about why what the officer had just said was bullshit. 

“Okay. Yes, yes sir. I have my student card on me. It’s in my back pocket. I’m going to reach for it now.” 

Alex waits until the officer gives him a stiff nod before he reaches with his left hand for his card which he usually tucks away in his jean’s back pocket.

“Wait.”

Alex makes the mistake of looking away from the officer. He’d been watching his own arm as it was moving and trying to focus on doing it slowly and purposefully. Now he has to glance back up at him. Alex can see the smugness behind the cop’s watchful eye.

“Turn around. I suspect you might have a gun tucked in the back of your jeans.” 

The accusation is absurd. Hamilton has done nothing to be suspect of carrying a gun.

“Sir there’s no gun. I don’t carry a-” 

“I said turn around. Keep you hands up.” The officer’s voice is harsher now, more erratic. The cop is just getting more worked up the longer this goes on.

Alex swallows at the lump of frustration in his throat and slowly tuns around. His eyes are desperately scanning the car park but it’s still stubbornly empty. 

“Lift up the back of your shirt.” 

It’s not fair. He shouldn’t get to be humiliated like this. The officer would see the lump of a gun against Alex’s tight shirt if it was there. But Alex decides there’s no longer a point in resisting what this pig wants him to do. 

Alex slows moves his hands down to the edge of his shirt and gently pulls it up to his lower back, clearly showing there’s nothing there. 

“See officer, I’m not carrying anything.” Just as Hamilton thinks it’s safe to let go of his shirt and reach for his card, the officer moves.

Alex feels his breath get knocked out of him as he is shoved forward and into the car, his upper body is pushed down so his stomach is lying flat on the car’s bonnet and his cheek is pressed painfully against the warm metal.

“What’re you doing. I didn’t do anything. Let me up!” The pleas fall on deaf ears as Alex hears the distinct sound of metal clinking behind him and feels his wrists being pulled together.

“You can’t just arrest me for doing nothing. What’s your badge number? You can’t just do this.” Alex feels bile in the back of his throat, he thinks any second now he’ll vomit. The anxiety is kicking into next gear in his stomach and he feels light headed as he struggles to get his panicked breathing under control. 

“I’m arresting you under the suspicion of joyriding and then of resisting an officer.”

The words sound distant as they hit Alex’s ears. Similar to how you hear things when you’re under water. The pressure on his back feels like more than the weight of another human being, the pressure makes Alex feel completely helpless. How can this be happening? He didn’t do anything. He was just sitting there. This isn’t meant to happen. He’s meant to be free in America. 

“I told you. I wasn’t doing anything to the car. It’s my brothers.”

The officer acts like Alex’s words don’t reach him.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can be held against you as evidence.” The officer sounds challenging as he rattles off the company line. This man would be more than happy to have Alex say something to get him in trouble.

“You’re making a mistake.” Alex hisses through his teeth as the officer hauls him up from the car, his hands now cuffed firmly behind him. The officer just sneers at him, fully intending to drag him to where ever he’d packed his squad car, when a voice calls his name.

“Alex! What’re you doing to him!” 

Relief floods through Hamilton as Elizabeth Schuyler comes into view, sprinting around cars and towards the officer. The feeling is almost dizzying. 

“You know this man miss?” The officer sounds annoyed as he takes in the, as usual, striking beauty of Elizabeth Schuyler. She’s in a gorgeous knee length green dress today, decorated with expensive jewellery and a fancy designer purse. She looks like the perfect rich Caucasian American woman. 

“Of course, I know this man. What the hell are you arresting him for?” Her face is a mask of fury, just barely contained behind a barrier of composure. Alex can see through it though, can see the panic and worry in the lines of her face. 

“He’s under suspicion for theft of a car Ma’am, quite a serious accusation.” The officer tries to sound confident as he gestures to the BMW beside them, but Alex is starting to hear the pinprick of regret in his tone. Not for messing with Hamilton but regret that he’s getting caught doing it.

“Theft?” She looks bewildered at the car and then at the officer. “You think he’s stealing his own brother’s car? What made you believe that?”

“Suspicious activity, he-”

“was just sitting on the car waiting for his brother.” Alex interrupts, getting the officer back for his earlier interruptions. 

The officer pulls painfully at the cuffs in retaliation, making Alex straighten his back and let out a pained puff of air. Hamilton wasn’t out of the woods yet.

“I want you to release him immediately. I also want your name, badge number and department. You can bet I’m filing a report this evening on this horrendous behaviour. You should be utterly ashamed of yourself.”

“Ma’am he’s not going anywhere. I have no proof of this _‘brother’_ of his” He says the word in disdain, as though it was impossible for Alex to have a brother that could afford such a car. “owning this car. All I have is a suspect looking suspicious around one of the most expensive vehicles currently on the road.”

Just as Eliza looks ready to explode at this cop, another voice pipes into the conversation. 

“I guess monsieur you’ll have to allow me the pleasure of showing you my car registration papers and my driving license. I’m sure that will clear all this up.” 

Lafayette looks practically murderous. His tone is light and steady but Alex notices his fists quivering by his sides, the way his jaw is locked and his eyes narrowed. The coldness of Lafayette as he unlocks and saunters towards his car is a shock to Alex’s system. He doesn’t remember ever seeing the other man so passively enraged.

The cop looks beyond vexed as Lafayette hands him the papers, their story matching up perfectly. Eventually the officer uncuffs him, although he leaves it for as long as possible. Alex isn’t sure why, but he sort of expects an apology from the other man. Not that it would make things better, but it just seems like the human thing to do when you get something so utterly wrong with regards to another human being.

Instead, the officer levels the three with an unnerving stare.

“Don’t let me catch you loitering around like this again. We have more important things as officers to be doing than dealing with fake situations like this.”

Alex wants to scream. Wants to punch this smug bastard across the face. Wants to push him up against the car with his arms locked and show him how it feels. He wants to post the face of this officer online, a stream of nasty comments beneath it with the guys work place on it for anyone on the internet to mess with.

Despite these feelings, Alex lets the man walk away. Hamilton even grabs Lafayette’s wrist when his half-brother goes to barrel after him once he’s said his closing remark. The taller man looks frantic when he glances down at Alex, as though he can’t understand why Alex isn’t egging him on. The tears on Hamilton’s face though, accompanied with the pained way he’s rubbing at his wrists, are enough to quiet the arguments on Lafayette’s lips.

Alex barely even notices Eliza embracing him in a hug as he begins to shake. He clings to her then, like a buoy in an unforgiving sea, he feels like he’s drowning.

“C’mon. Let’s get you inside.” Hamilton lets himself be led. He doesn’t know where his friends are taking him, and he doesn’t care. He just wants to put as much distance between this car park and himself as possible.

\--------------------------------------------------------

It’s half eleven when John finally pulls into the college’s car park. Given it’s a Monday night, there’s no one around. He fiddles with his new snow globe. 

It’s lake themed. It’s made up of all different shades of blues, whites and silvers. The inside is like looking through the bottom of a fresh water later. The sprinkles inside it are tiny little fish. It looks ridiculous, especially in the hands of a twenty-one-year-old. He handles it with more care than his phone as he packs it into his bag.

He climbs out of his car and drags himself towards the dorms. His legs sting and strain from muscle pain. The park had been filled with difficult terrain and steep inclines. He’d spent hours navigating his way around it. He’d definitely be feeling the consequences of his adventure for the next few days.

As he enters the lobby of the building, he decides to side-track to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water before he heads up stairs. The two recreational rooms and the lobby seating area are empty bar one or two students working away on laptops. The kitchen however is not so peaceful.

The first thing Laurens notices as he enters the large kitchen is the contemplating look on Jefferson’s face as he balances himself on one of the kitchen counters. Madison has his back to Jack so he can’t make out his expression, he’s leaning against the kitchen island, but Jack can clearly see Burr biting his lip nervously and scrolling through his phone, standing just off to the side of the other two.

“Maybe he-” Jefferson cuts off his sentence as his eyes land on Laurens standing sheepishly at the door. He may have accidentally ignored their numerous texts and calls throughout the day.

“Is right under our noses.” Jefferson finishes, crossing his arms and giving Jack a frightening look of disappointment.

Burr’s head snaps up at the same time that Madison spins around, both following Jefferson’s line of sight.

“John!” His name is exclaimed at the same moment from both men’s mouth, as they seem to both deflate in relief.

“Uh…hi.” He mumbles, looking away from them in favour of inspecting the tiled floor. Such an interesting pattern…

“Hi? That’s all you got. What, can’t even manage hello.” John winces at Jefferson’s tone. He deserves this. He knew his friends were worried, but he’d been so preoccupied with the day it was, he’d just abandoned them. 

“Hello.” John tries again, now raising his gaze enough to look at the three.

Jefferson scoffs in disbelief, shaking his head at the shorter man.

“John where were you today? We were worried something had happened.” Madison questions, cutting off whatever sassy remark it looked like Jefferson was about to throw at him.

“I had a family thing to attend. Sorry I should have mentioned it before.” 

It wasn’t strictly a lie. But it still felt like one when he was met with their concerned faces. They’d understand if he told them. Understand why he needed the space today. But then they might also ask questions. About her, about that night, about what happened a decade ago. They couldn’t know that. They’d hate him even more than Hamilton.

Speaking of the devil, just as Laurens is explaining himself to his friends, his roommate bursts past him and to the fridge. Jack only briefly glances at the man as he enters the room, but his face is stony and livid. Laurens is just glad he isn’t on the receiving end of it right now.

“A family thing?” Madison asks, “You couldn’t text at it?”

A reasonable question. But how does John answer?

“It…uh, it would have appeared rude. I’m sorry I meant to message back when I got into the car, but my phone died, and I couldn’t text when I was driving.” Again, not completely a lie. This day was about her, it would have been rude to text the guys. His phone did also die and have to be recharged. John was just… reshaping the truth.

Alex angrily slams the fridge shut as he leaves back the juice he’s been pouring for himself. Hamilton flies by them again without so much as a comment. 

“What’s gotten into him?” Laurens muses when Hamilton is out of earshot.

“Really? You’re focusing on Hamilton right now.”

John realises it’s the first thing Burr has said so far. The man had looked the most emotionless during the conversation, but now that he has Jack’s attention, it’s clear his friend is pissed and tired.

“Sorry. For that, and for making you all worry. Really, I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think me disappearing for a day would seem so odd.”

“It’s not just that.” Burr snaps, his tone defensive. “Hamilton said you came home last night at three in the morning, plastered. He seemed to be under the impression you were with us.”

Oh. Now things made a lot more sense. John blinks owlishly at his now awaiting friends, all looking equally impatient for his response. So much for dealing with this himself. 

“Yeah, I went to a bar last night when you all went home.” The truth was easy to speak, the truth of where he went anyways. He holds his breath as he answers, training his sight now on the cheesy kitchen knick knacks on the wall. He’s waiting for them to push.

“Why? Why didn’t you tell us?” Madison, always the one to ask the obvious questions.

What does he do? What does he say when he’s so afraid to tell them the truth?

“Well I’m the only one that’s twenty one so… I didn’t think it mattered.”

The lies pathetic, as is the execution of it. His voice sounds unsure even to his own ears and his friends look less than impressed.

“Bullshit.” Jefferson calls him out. Waltzing up to Jack and staring down into his eyes. “How about you stop lying for half a damn minute. Aren’t we meant to be your friends?” 

Jefferson comes off as intimidating, but John can see the inkling of hurt behind his friend’s anger. Thomas is genuinely upset with him. The thought makes Lauren’s stomach twist as he notices the other two men sporting similar faces.

John slouches in defeat. He’d been standing with his shoulders and chest tense and heightened to try come across as more confident, but now he just feels tired. He’s been holding himself up for way too long today.

“Not here.” Jack almost whispers, rubbing a hand across his face. The orb of the snow globe digs into his back as he pulls at one of the straps on his shoulder. It’s oddly comforting.

Jefferson looks taken aback by how quickly John concedes but quickly moves into action. He drapes an arm around John and leads him to his shared room with Madison. The other two following behind.

The bedroom door slams shut behind the four and the sound seems to vibrate through John. His vision is starting to tunnel and stutter from the fatigue. Maybe that’s why he’s here. Maybe that’s why he’s willing to tell them. He’s so tired he feels drunk and when you’re drunk, you say all kinds of shit you shouldn’t.

He collapses onto one of the beds, sitting across it and resting his back against one of the walls as Madison and Burr sit on the edge of the bed across from him. Jefferson perches himself on one of their desks.

They’re all just staring at him, waiting for him to speak. They have no more questions… for now. They just want the truth.

“I always drink the night of my birthday. Or at least I have done so the last few years. I…I like to feel numb when midnight hits. I like to already feel detached from things come the day after my birthday.”

He glances at their faces when he says this. They look worried; interested; concerned. He hates it. So, he looks down at his lap. He’ll tell them. Not all of it. He can’t. He never can. But he’ll fairy tale the story a bit.

“My mother died ten years ago.” He doesn’t dare look at them when he says that. He knows all too well how pitying and sombre people like to look when he tells them.

“She died the morning after my 11th birthday. She was driving home and…” Here comes the lie. “Her car spun on some wet tarmac. It flipped into a ditch on the side of the road. The impact killed her instantly. It was about three in the morning when they think it happened.”

He hears the sharp intake of the breathes they make. He can feel the tension and sorrow in the air. He doesn’t dare stop for breath as he finishes his admission.

“So, every year I do my best to not think about it. I don’t want to look at the clock and think back to that night. Passing out has been my best solution to that.” He shrugs, hearing how pathetic it sounds. “I spend the day travelling then. I visit a new place, go on a new adventure. She always loved exploring. I spend the day doing something I think she’d like to be doing.”

The last admission is a lot. Even for Laurens. He can feel a weight flop off his chest as he says it though. He doesn’t think he’d ever told anyone this. He was always worried it’d sound stupid aloud. Even now he internally tenses up, throwing up walls and barricades so that if his friends make fun of this, make fun of him, he’ll be able to take it.

There’s a minute of silence. John doesn’t look up once during it, although he can feel their eyes on him. He can hear their mouths make noise as though they’re opening them to speak but they don’t say anything at first.

“John.” He looks up slowly, lifting his head just enough to see Burr leaning across the gap between the beds at him. “Thank you. For telling us. That’s a very personal thing you told us and…well I can only speak for myself, but I feel very honoured you could tell me that. I hope we didn’t push you too hard to admit it”

“Agreed. I’m sorry if you felt we were forcing you to tell us this. But I’m very grateful you did. It makes the day we spent worrying about you make a lot more sense.” Madison adds.

John stares at them a little dumbfounded. He was expecting them to push further, to ask more questions. To get angry maybe, that he had lied. To tell him it’s been ten years, that he should be over it. He’s waiting for a lot of things from them. He hasn’t been waiting for this.

He waits for the other shoe to drop, for their tone to change. When it doesn’t, he lets himself relax a fraction. He unclenches his fists; he hadn’t noticed he’d been diggings his nails into his palm until he feels the sting of his nails digging out from his skin. 

“You’re uh… you’re not still mad then?” His voice sounds pathetic, even to him. It cracks at the end of his question which leaves John awkwardly clearing his throat as he wrenches his gaze away from Burr’s startled expression.

“Mad?” Burr sounds confused again.

John doesn’t know what to say next. How to voice how he’s used to people being mad, even when he’s explained himself. He’s used to people putting themselves first because John just isn’t as important to please or comfort. He’s not worth the same as others, not after what he did all those years ago.

“I’m mad.” Jefferson butts in, his tone cutting in the heavy air of the room.

“Thomas.” Madison warns, but the older man ignores him.

“I’m mad we all had to be worrying all day. I’m angry that we left you last night when you clearly needed people to have your back. I’m outraged this has been a yearly thing for you and most prominently, I’m furious that after the day you’ve had, we pushed you to tell us all this.” John is staring at the usually bubbly man in awe as he sits down beside John, their shoulders brushing off one another’s.

“But fuck John. The last thing any of us are, is mad at you.”

John doesn’t know how to respond. So, he stays silent. Or at least, as silent as someone can be when they’re crying, when they’re starting to sob and shake and suddenly it’s Jefferson’s arm around him and Burr’s hand rubbing his back and John has never felt so utterly vulnerable, so pathetic. He’s never felt like such a burden in all his life. He’s only known these guys for a few weeks. They shouldn’t have to put up with this shit. He’s being an awful selfish, self-entitled person. They should just ask him to leave.

But they don’t. They stay by his side. They stay while he unravels. None of them speaking or prodding or lecturing him. They’re just there. 

John cries until he’s empty. He cries until his head aches and his throat throbs in pain. He doesn’t move from his position against Jefferson’s side. He’s too embarrassed to. He doesn’t know what to do next.

Maybe that’s why he lets the others join him on the bed. He lets them manhandle him until they’ve set up their miniature projector at their feet and are playing a movie on the wall across from them.

John couldn’t tell you what movie they watched. He couldn’t recite the comments anyone made about the acting, the plot or the premise. He couldn’t tell you what time he fell asleep or where he ended up closing his eyes.

The only thing he truly remembers about the night when he wakes up, is that he fell asleep feeling wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn this chapter was tough to write. I had to leave it several times and come back to it. It's a heavy one and I left it until the story was well established before writing it. I'm really happy with how it turned out and shocked by how long it turned out to be. Hope you guys enjoyed reading it, even though I'm sure it might have brought out...angry feelings. I know I certainly felt them while writing it and when editing it.
> 
> Until next chapter!


	12. I'm No SuperHero...Or SuperVillain

Tuesday is a blur for John. He gets back to his room the next morning, minutes before his first lecture is meant to start. Alex is long gone so he’s able to get washed and changed without issue.

He’s about ten minutes late to the lecture, but Burr’s kept a seat for him and even has a black coffee waiting on his desk. Laurens has never felt so grateful to have someone as a friend.

The rest of the day passes quickly. Lectures and lunch meld into one and then Laurens is spending the evening in the library with his friends. Burr and himself are grinding through their psychology bi-weekly test together. They do it one at a time so they can help each other with the multiple-choice questions.

The day takes it toll though. John’s muscles are aching from the day before from all his hiking and climbing. His eyes feel heavy to try keep open and his awareness meter is at an all time low. He’s running at fumes come 8pm. He can’t even muster a chuckle at Jefferson’s antics as they leave the library. After last night, his social meter is on empty.

Burr sees him to his room. It’s not too much of an inconvenience as they live on the same floor, but it’s the look Burr gives him that makes John feel guilty. His friend eyes him all the way to the door and until Laurens is out of view. John’s pretty sure his friend is paranoid now about John getting home safe. John really doesn’t want his friends to worry about him.

The lamps in the room are on surprisingly. John was sure Alexander would be at some event or social thing this evening. His roommate isn’t usually home before nine. 

Yet, lounging on his bed with his headphones on and head gently nodding, is Hamilton.

As usual with his tunnel vision roommate, Alexander doesn’t acknowledge him as John sets himself up at his desk. He’d finished all his necessary work at the library, but John has missed a whole day of college. He needs to write up his notes from the lectures.

He internally face palms as he realises he meant to ask burr for his notes to get bullet points off him, but John had forgotten. Now he’s going to have to do up his own notes with just the power points and documents online. All those words, and lines, and small fonts. He tries not to overwhelm himself before he’s even begun trying to read them.

He takes the moment of unpacking to also place his new snow globe on his side of the windowsill. There’s just enough space for him to place it without going onto Alex’s side.

As he’s leaning over his bedside table to place it, Alex finally looks up and spots him. It’s sort of comical how shocked Hamilton always looks when he’s dragged out of his intense typing vomit. He always looks so startled.

John sits himself down in his desk chair and starts booting up his laptop as Alex pushes himself into a less slouched sitting position on his bed. He also pulls off his headphones and leaves them dangling around his neck, faint instrumental music is emitting from them.

“Enjoy your day out yesterday?” Hamilton snarls, the tone shocking Laurens.

It wasn’t unlike Alexander to come off as hostile in their conversations. But the pair had been working on their project just a few days ago and were starting to be on much better terms with one another. Why the sudden change?

“I’m sorry…what?” Laurens is at a loss by what Hamilton wants from him. How did Alexander even know he had gone somewhere for a ‘day out’.

Alex narrows his eyes in suspicion, his eyebrows bunching together as one side of his mouth quirks to the side.

“The news covered it all pretty well you know.” Laurens heart plummets to his chest. He can feel all the blood in his body drain to his toes as his throat seizes up. They couldn’t know, the media couldn’t have known where he was going or why. They couldn’t have worked it out, not after all these years.

“What…” John clears his throat, trying to get his sentence together. “What do you mean?”

His voice sounds hoarse and much quieter than normal. His pale complexion and the jitteriness of his now bouncing leg must be enough of a tell for Hamilton to see that he’s caught John out.

He raises his eyebrows in delight at seeing John looking so uncomfortable. Smug was the only way to describe the other man as he places his laptop on his bed and stands up in the middle of the room, towering over the sitting Laurens.

“They showed it all. The crowds, the speakers, the banners and even the delightful interviews of all the red neck hardcore Christians that attended.”

What. What is Hamilton talking about?

“All of yesterday’s news was breaking down the points of the rally. You must have been really proud of your father standing up there announcing all his plans of oppression to the adoring crowds.”

Oh. His father’s rally. Laurens had forgotten all about it. He’d been so preoccupied. But of course, now it was all out there. The whole world knew about his dad and his bill. John’s not sure how to reply to Hamilton. What he’s meant to say. He hadn’t even been at the damn thing.

“Alex, you got his all wrong.”

“Don’t.” Hamilton’s tone is biting and sharp. He points a finger at Laurens as he speaks. “Don’t you dare privilege-splain to me about your dad’s bill or his ideals. You can leave your bible quotes and bullshit at the front door.”

“Stop putting words in my mouth. It’s not fair that you keep-” Laurens stands up to face off against Alexander.

“What’s not fair is how your father thinks he can wretch away one of the biggest progressions for same-sex couples in this country. After all our years of fighting and protesting. He thinks he can just take that back from us, our greatest win.” Hamilton interrupts.

“Well I’m sorry if what my father does upsets you, but if you haven’t noticed. I’m not him.” John fires back, squaring his shoulders off against Hamilton as the two stand a step a part. 

“No. You’re just his number one supporter.” Hamilton sneers.

“You think you know it all, don’t you?” 

“I know enough.”

Laurens shakes his head at the smaller man, his hand itching to smack the smirk off his face. A chuckle escapes from Laurens mouth before he can even work out what’s funny.

“Must be nice living in your fantasy world Alex. Playing hero, running around thinking you’re the know it all protagonist. Do you ever get tired of hearing your own voice?”

“Shut up. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“And yet you think you know everything about me. How about next time you get a stick up your ass about something, you find another villain to monologue at.”

The comment is not taken well by Hamilton. He sucks in a sharp breath as his hands ball up in an attempt to not strangle John.

“You wouldn’t know a villain if they were staring at you in the face. You think I live in a fantasy? Your world is so star spangled perfect that the toilets in your manor home probably hum the national anthem when you flush them. You wouldn’t know hardship if it slapped you in the face you privileged dickhead.”

Laurens snorts in response, letting out a chuckle that leaves Alex looking like he was slapped in the face. As John is shaking his head in clear disbelief at the disillusions Alex has about John’s life, Alex barrels on with this tirade. 

“You’re so fucking untouchable that you could kill a man and the press would probably spin it that you were the one assaulted.” 

The world spins in Lauren’s sight, his mouth tastes like muddied water and his ears ring louder than the bellowing coming from Hamilton. That comment hit too close to home.

Without realising what he’s doing John lunges forward, grabbing his roommate by the front of his t-shirt and pushing him back until Hamilton is pressed against his bedside table.

“You have no idea about the shit I go through. You think my daddy solves all my problems? You think my mother’s heritage doesn’t get me the same scrutiny you find yourself under in this country? You push me again Hamilton and I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” Hamilton is glaring at him; his roommate had grabbed at Laurens hands as he shoved him but Alex isn’t making an attempt to push John off of him. Instead, he just looks reserved. He looks ready for John to swing at him…he might even want him to. 

John just lets out a growl of frustration as an answer and shoves Hamilton again as he backs away from him and paces to the other side of the room, spinning back to face the other man as he reaches his desk.

“Not that it’s any of your fucking business. But if you’re going to be this insufferable for the next while because of you own shitty sherlock deductions. I wasn’t at my father’s rally.” As Alex opens his mouth to protest John holds a hand up to him.

“You don’t need to take my word for it. Like you said all those cameras, all those shots. You think they wouldn’t have had a whole piece on his eldest son being there?”

The doubt and hesitation on Alex’s face is nothing short of delightful.

“Then, where were you?” Hamilton eventually asks, looking a lot more deflated than when John had entered the room.

“Oh. Of course, it’s a little area called none, followed by, your business.” On that note John makes it his job to actively ignore Hamilton’s spluttering and protests as he unlocks his laptop and starts downloading his missed lectures.

Alexander stands glowering at him for another minute before he flops back onto his bed and continues whatever he had been working on.

The next two hours drag by with a thick tension in the room. It’s one of those tense atmospheres that you don’t even feel comfortable coughing or stretching in. Laurens spends the whole time rigidly clicking through his lecture slides.

It’s not easy either. Some of the slides have bare bone points on them and John has to sieve through convoluted documents that ramble on, just to make sense of some of the terms he’s meant to know about. 

The first hour is fine, but come the end of the second and John’s brain is shutting off. He’s too tired to concentrate and now his sentences are jittery. The words and letters are becoming restless and it’s getting so bad John finds himself staring at the same line for a full minute before he realises none of the words make sense anymore. 

He can’t do this. Resentment is building in his chest as his own eyes betray him. This is only the second module of four he’d missed from yesterday. If he can’t even get through the first two of them tonight, John’s going to be swamped for the rest of the week, trying to play catch up and continue with his classes.

He’s so irritated that he even forgets Hamilton is in the room. That his roommate has moved up to his desk, not even a foot or two from Laurens and that he’s watching him as John angrily slams his laptop shut and rests his tired head in his quivering hands. Not even his muscles can hold his head up anymore.

“Having some trouble?”

Laurens doesn’t even dignify the question with a response, just tilts his head to the left so he can glare seethingly at the smug bastard. Hamilton’s wearing his signature scrutinizing face though, not his smug one. His eyebrows are raised halfway to his hair line while his teeth chew thoughtfully at the inside of his bottom lip. 

Hamilton doesn’t seem put off by Laurens death glare.

“Hey, mercy! I’m not mocking you.”

John sighs as he leans himself back so now, he’s slouching against the back of the desk chair. He spins the wheeled chair just enough so that’s John’s facing Hamilton rather than looking to the side.

“Sure, you’re not. Why do you care? I thought I couldn’t know ‘hardship’ so obviously I must be just peachy.”

Surprisingly Hamilton manages to look somewhat bashful as Laurens taunts his earlier rant.

“I may have gotten a little…carried away earlier, with my ranting. I had a bad run in yesterday with…” Hamilton pauses briefly, looking uncomfortable with what he’s saying. 

“It doesn’t matter. I jumped to conclusions about the rally and I was just angry at something else. I shouldn’t have said all the things I said.”

He doesn’t actually say sorry, John muses. Yet somehow, in Alexander’s own way, this was an apology. 

“You saying you don’t believe what you said?” John pushes, wanting to work out what Hamilton truly thinks of Laurens.

Alexander fiddles with the wire of his headset, loping it around his fingers and tugging gently on it as he does so. He looks unsure of how to answer.

“I’m saying regardless of what I think. It was wrong of me to just attack you with it.”

John tilts his head curiously at Hamilton. He tries to catch his eye to see if Laurens can get a better idea of what’s going on in Alex’s head, but Alex refuses to meet his gaze. There’s a pause in their conversation as both struggle for how to either continue or end it. John realises, he hasn’t answered the question that started this whole conversation.

“I missed all my lectures yesterday.” 

He spins more towards his desk as he speaks, he doesn’t want to look at Hamilton as he admits this. A part of him doesn’t want to keep talking. He doesn’t want to give this asshole more fuel to use against him. Another part of him is beyond exhausted and knows Hamilton is possibly one of the smartest and most dedicated students in his course, he might just help John.

“I have to catch up by using the online power points, but most of them are useless and don’t explain anything. I’m struggling to understand most of it and then organise them into concise notes for the topics.”

Lauren’s refuses to look at him but Alexander is now leaning his head on one of his hands that’s resting on the armchair of his desk chair. His face is a mask of surprise, both from what John has admitted and also that John is telling him any of this.

“There’s some documents and source material in the online folders for the topics. They should fill in most of the blanks.”

Alexander is, surprisingly, trying to help his roommate who just seems to look more annoyed by his advice than grateful. John scratches at the back of neck before straightening up and responding.

“I know…I’ve tried to read them. But I can’t get through them.”

Alexander raises an eyebrow at the comment. John didn’t seem like the type to be discouraged by some hard work. He was always studying, nearly as much as Alex.

“I know they’re pretty boring and long winded, but it’s only a few lectures. Surely you can suck it up and just read through them quickly to find the information.”

“No, it’s not…you don’t understand.”

John looks weary as he spits out the words. He treats the complaining like it’s painful, tiresome. Alexander gets the impression there’s something more to this issue.

“The words. When they’re in that small font, when they’re so bunched together and endless…I mean even when they’re not like that it’s hard! But with these documents…they won’t stop moving. They keep rearranging and the letters keep changing and I can’t work out what any of it is saying.”

Alex is stunned. I mean, it’s not an uncommon issue for people. He’d known plenty of people in high school that struggled with the same issue. He just never would have imagined John Laurens was someone who suffered from it. The man had seemed untouchable once Alexander discovered who he was.

“You’re dyslexic.” 

The gentle rose blush across Lauren’s cheeks and the way he bitterly nods his head is enough confirmation for Hamilton.

“I usually record the lectures I go to, so that I can listen back later when I’m writing up notes for the PowerPoints. But obviously if I miss the lecture, I miss any chance of doing that.”

Recordings. Suddenly all the times Alex had rolled his eyes when he heard podcasts blaring through John’s ears as he studied made a lot more sense. 

“What’s your e-mail?”

“What?” The question is the last thing John is expecting from Alexander.

“Your e-mail?”

John must be in a state of shock because he rattles off his college e-mail without another remark. He watches curiously as Alexander ignores him in favour of going through his e-mail and typing up some sort of message.

Laurens reopens his slammed laptop and clicks into his e-mail as he notices Alexander clicking through several things on the screen. After a minute of silence Lauren’s gets a ping on his laptop, notifying him of a new message.

There’s no subject but the e-mail is from an A.Hamilton. There’re several documents attached and as Laurens clicks the first one, he realises they’re all Alex’s notes from the day before. Everything he’d typed up in the lecture and then polished up on afterwards with more material.

“You- You didn’t have to.” John points out, his voice gentle, like he’s afraid it’ll crack if he speaks too loudly. He says it as nonchalantly as possible, but internally he’s freaking out. Relief is flooding through him as hours of agony are washed away before him.

“No. I also didn’t have to bite you head off earlier. The joys of being my roommate.” Laurens snorts at the comment, realising a second after that it’s the first time John has ever laughed _with_ Hamilton, instead of _at_ him.

“Thank you, Alex. This… means a lot.”

As John finally has the courage to glance over at his roommate, he realises Alexander is now purposely looking anywhere but at Laurens. A blush has creeped its way up Hamilton’s neck and is staining his ears and face. 

“We’re even now. No need for thanks.” 

Laurens would think Alex looks adorable right now, if he didn’t hate the guy most of the time. People can do nice things for you, that doesn’t mean they’re a nice person. John knew all about people like that.

John nods in response, seeming to end the conversation. They don’t talk for the rest of the night. Which is kind of nice. They get ready for bed in silence, no fighting or groaning at one another. No complaining about the state of the room or any messes in the bathroom. For once, they’re in harmony. Laurens even lets it go when he notices Alexander staring at his new snow globe before they both climb into bed. Luckily Alex doesn’t ask about it.

As Laurens clicks off his lamp and submits them to darkness, he hears a voice calling out from the other side of the room, for the first time in the six weeks he’s been living in this room.

“Goodnight Laurens.”

“Goodnight Hamilton”

John has no trouble getting to sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluffier chapter...sort of....after the last one! This dialogue was really fun to write and I basically cranked this out in 3 hours or so tonight so hope you guys enjoy the speedy update!


	13. Paint Me Like One Of Your French Girls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> N.B Any italics in speech, are french in this chapter :)

Wednesday is a blessing. John’s lectures seem easier than usual and all the studying he’s been doing is finally starting to pay off. He can keep up with all the new topics and even ask the lecturer more complex questions at the end of classes.

Lunchtime is filled with the usual messing around with Jefferson. Madison and Burr have resigned themselves to being friends with them and having to deal with the two of them and their usual lunch time banter.

Today, Jefferson and John are arguing about time travel and if it would be more interesting to travel backwards or forwards in time.

“You’re telling me you don’t want to see what technology is going to look like 20 years from now?” Jefferson exclaims, wildly waving a fry around to emphasis his opinion.

“Why? I’m going to see that anyways in 20 years’ time. Not to mention all I’ll probably witness is the release of the IPhone 100 series or something like that.” John replies, crossing his arms as he waits for Jefferson’s response.

“Okay. But why even go back in time? You might just mess things up. Plus, we already have history books. We know what happened. The future is an unknown! So much more exciting.”

“We know what people who wrote those books want us to know. We’ll never truly know the past unless we can go back and live it. Imagine all the great events you could witness!”

“The plague.” Burr chimes in, ever the optimist.

“Or perhaps you’d rather wrestle with the dinosaurs John.” Now even Madison is teasing him.

“You guys suck.” He groans, pushing away his tray after finishing the last of his fries.

“Hey, don’t hate the players, hate the debate.” Jefferson grins at him, starting to pick up his own rubbish. 

They walk through the campus together towards their last lecture of the day. It’s clear from the lane ways that Autumn is truly in full swing.

The footpaths are blanketed with dying and brittle leaves that crunch under their feet as they wrap scarfs around their neck more tightly and start draping jackets over their summer outfits. By next week John is sure he’ll be seeing jack-o-lanterns and other Halloween decorations. He wasn’t sure how the college welcomed the holiday, but he has a feeling it’ll be very much in your face.

“You guys up for some smash bros tonight? I finished my essay yesterday so I can head to the recreational room early and snag us the console.” Jefferson asks them as they get out of the winds of autumn and into another stuffy lecture hall.

The other two are quick to agree to the plan but John must decline.

“Sorry, I got drawing this evening.”

Jefferson rolls his eyes playfully at him.

“I suppose we’ll have to make do without Picasso then.”

John laughs at that. As if John could be compared to any of the greats, he only drew passively. He’s never been very good at it.

“I guess you will. It’ll give you lot a chance to get better at the game without me kicking your butts.” 

The comment gets him booed by his friends and playfully smacked by Jefferson just as the lecturer grabs their attention and they have to start their note taking.

\----------------

Laurens hates being late for anything. 

It’s probably a reflex he’s built over the years with having to attend political events and parties with his father. His father always said it was a reflection on the entire family if one of them appeared tardy or unkept. 

The result of this was John feeling like shit when he eventually slips into the art room. His two art friends Sandra and Lily obviously had thought he wasn’t coming because his usual seat isn’t saved. They give him an apologetic look from across the room, but he just waves them off with a fake grin and finds the last free easel.

They didn’t always use easels. Some weeks they’d just sit around in large groups and sketch on desks, some weeks they have prompts and topics. This week was more specific. They were going to be doing some portrait work. 

John just sort of assumes there will be models sitting in for them to sketch, or that they’d just end up doing self-portraits. He didn’t think much about it while he was setting up his paints, he’s favouring acrylics this week over oil. Just as he’s squeezing out some primary colours, the art director of the society comes to the top of the room.

“Okay folks! Portraits. One of hardest pieces of art to do, or at least the most dangerous! An artist can never be too careful about getting someone’s good side.” A couple of chuckles and giggles echo around the room.

“For this week’s project we wanted to make things more personal, to add some bonding time to our society event this week. So, you lot will be paired off for the next three hours and drawing one another, meaning you each get to take home with you a portrait of yourself.”

An interesting concept. John’s never modeled before, but he guesses it won’t be too awkward considering he’ll be focused on drawing the other person. He silently hopes he gets a man to draw, women’s hair can be hard to detail.

Almost as though the director was reading his mind, she starts pointing around the room and pairing people off. Laurens really should have been more careful where he sat, any other week and this wouldn’t have happened. Any other week he would have been the other side of the room. He never would have sat near…

“Laurens and Lafayette, you two can pair up.”

It’s tough for John to even turn his head and make eye contact with the French man. He quickly finds himself on the end of an unimpressed and withering glare. The next three hours were going to be a delight… not.

The two of them silently set up their easels so they’re facing one another and then they both awkwardly stare at each other, unsure of what they should say and how to begin.

“My best advice to you lot is to start off by doing fifteen minutes each of sketching while the other person models. It’ll give you a chance to get a foundation and then you can do touch ups as you both work away.”

Another stiff moment of silence passes between the pair as the rest of the room seems to erupt into chatter, nervous giggling and sketching sounds. John briefly clears his throat as Lafayette raises a waiting brow at him.

“Would you like to sketch or model fist?” John keeps his voice as level and polite as he can. His efforts might as well be in vain though as he just receives a scoff from the taller man.

“I will sketch.”

That’s as much as John gets out of him as he sits there for the next fifteen minutes as Lafayette scratches away at his sheet of paper. Laurens does his best not to fiddle as the time passes agonisingly slowly. He’s never been a fan of being stared at. 

It doesn’t help that every glance Lafayette throws at him is filled with scrutiny and disgust. John couldn’t help but start to think about his weirdly shaped nose, or the fact that his eyes were just a little too far apart. Although, after ten minutes when the harder sketches come into play, Lafayette just starts to look focused. He begins looking more at John as a puzzle, rather than dirt. A slight improvement.

“Alright. You may sketch.”

The words are sharp and somewhat rude, but John allows for the fact that English is not the man’s first language and instead of starting a fight begins his own sketch.

Lafayette doesn’t have the easiest hair to sketch, but it’s fun trying to sketch it and line some of it up for later detailing. Lafayette grins briefly at something across the room and John catches the moment in his mind. The dazzling smile was much more interesting to sketch than the frown the man wears for most of the process.

John mightn’t have the best opinion of the other man, but damn is Lafayette handsome. John tries not to blush as the thought creeps through his head. This guy hates him, he reminds himself, this is no time to ogle. 

After fifteen minutes John has the roughest of rough sketches and he gently nods at Lafayette that he can move again. Without another word the two go back to their work. After ten more minutes, the constant staring at one another becomes less and less weird as they get engrossed in their work.

It’s not until an hour in when either of them makes another sound. Lafayette rubs angrily at something he’s drawn and slouches on his stool. He’s staring at John angrily as he chews at the bottom of his pencil. For once, it’s not John the man seems to be angry with.

“ _Why won’t it look right._ ” 

It takes John’s brain a moment to realise that Lafayette is speaking in his native tongue, French. Laurens is fluent in the language, has been for years, but it has been months since someone has spoken it so fluently around him. He’s surprised he could translate it so quickly.

“ _Is there a problem with my face?_ ” John isn’t sure where his confidence or tone comes from, but he’s pretty sure he just poked fun at one of his mortal enemies.

Lafayette’s eyebrow raises in disbelief as he seems to choke on some of his own spit. He straightens in his stool, leaning on his knees as he stares at John, more analysing than when he’d been sketching him.

“ _You speak French?_ ”

“ _Well, yes? It might be a little…_ ” He wracks his brain as he struggles to find the word. “ _rusty._ ”

“ _No, no. It’s very good! There’re so few people in America who speak it so well. It’s so nice to..._ ” Lafayette seems so thrilled and relieved to be speaking French, that it takes the man a moment to realise who he’s speaking to. Instantly the joy seems to wash off his face as his shoulder muscles tighten up and he contains the emotion on his face. Lafayette clears his throat.

“I should get back to this.” He speaks in English again, as though French has betrayed him. 

“Were you struggling with something?” Laurens sighs, wondering if trying to help the man will just get his head eaten off.

Lafayette does give him the side eye as he listens to the question. The man looks ready to deny it, but a quick glance back to his work and he just sighs.

“Your hair is quite curly. It’s hard to make it look…” He trails off, waving a finger loosely at John’s hair as he tries to come up with a word. John knows what he’s talking about before he even voices it, John had the same problem himself back in high school when he had to do a self-portrait. 

“not flat?” John hopes the French may appeal to Lafayette’s good side. The French man seems to narrow his eyes untrustingly but reluctantly nods his head. 

John pulls a sketch book out of his bag and lays it on his knees. They weren’t meant to look at the portraits until the end, so he does a quick two-minute tutorial for Lafayette to show him how he draws curls and how he approached drawing his own when he had to.

Lafayette nods along and slowly tries to repeat the process on his own sheet. It’s not as flawless or easy as John makes it look but slowly, he manages to craft the hairline the way he wants it to look. 

Lafayette gets so focused on the task that he forgets to thank John for his help. By the time he thinks of it, Laurens is fully focused on his own piece. Lafayette stares at the man briefly, watching the way he bites at his lip as he concentrates. How his eyebrows furrow and his hand keep instinctually pushing the same strand of hair behind his ear. 

John Laurens looks so peaceful like this; he looks like a sweet young man. The way he helped Lafayette made him seem beyond polite, it was something John did because he seemed like he wanted to genuinely help. Any other person and Lafayette would have given him a chance.

Even after knowing who his father is, Lafayette might have given him the chance. But the broken looking Hamilton that waltzed into his room just a few weeks ago sobbing about the message on his door is so burned into Laf’s mind, that he could never show kindness to someone like John Laurens. 

It’s not long before the pair are picking up paintbrushes and working on the colouring and shading of their works. As opposite as always, John uses his acrylics while Lafayette favours oil paint. 

There’s still close to an hour and a half left in the session when John feels his brain start to wander. The chatter in the room is intense and he feels like he’s going insane with how much he’s been silently staring at the other man. He decides, despite their less than stellar conversation earlier, to give it another go.

“Do you paint often?” John asks the questions in English; he gets the impression Lafayette is uneasy now about John’s ease at speaking French.

Lafayette tenses before answering, the hand holding his paint brush wavering at the edge of his art piece.

“I am at a club for it, am I not?” The tone is guarded, but John takes any answer as a win. 

“Right… I just meant is painting you medium. Or do you prefer digital or pencils or something?” 

Lafayette ponders the question for a while. He mixes some dark colours together, John presumes it’s for his hair, before he levels John with an unreadable expression.

“Digital preferably. I do not like making mistakes I cannot fix.” The answer seems double handed, but John ignores the sub text and just nods his head in agreement. He could understand that.

John goes back to shading along the jawline of the other man, before Lafayette surprises him with his own question.

“And you? What do you prefer John Laurens?” Laurens briefly wonders how the other man can make his own question sound so threatening.

“I like chalk. It’s messy… and it’s very easy to make mistakes. But it gives you a style that’s hard to copy with the other mediums.” 

Lafayette is an extremely tough person to gauge, but John optimistically believes the French man seems a bit impressed. John has definitely given him an answer he wasn’t expecting.

John doesn’t really know how to keep up the conversation, but somehow the two manage to stammer through the odd polite questions and comments over the next hour.

They stick to safe topics. John tells him how he learnt French as a third language from a private tutor growing up. Lafayette tells him about his own English tutor and how hard it was to move to America and speak only English most of the time. They speak a good bit about France. John has visited it twice and so they trade opinions on the country and how it differs from America.

In the last half an hour though, they fall silent as they both struggle to finish their pieces. John starts to doubt himself as he finishes his off. He didn’t do a traditional piece, looking around him he notices the portraits he can see are done in a very realistic style. The colouring, the sketches, all look like photographs. He bites his lip as he suddenly worries that Lafayette might take offense to how he treated the task. Maybe the French man will hate it and thus hate John even further.

For some reason, glancing again at Lafayette, even though john no longer needs to study him, the thought of the man despising him hurts. It hurts just a little more than it did before they’d had this experience.

Eventually, the clock rings and their time is up. John finishes by flourishing the bottom right of the portrait with his signature. He feels his mouth dry as Lafayette and himself stand up and go to look at each other’s piece. John has been so worried about whether Lafayette will like his or not, that he forgot to be nervous about his own portrait. 

As he makes his way to the front of the easel however, he needn’t have worried. Lafayette is clearly very talented. The French man has added a touch of his own style to the piece. The painting is uncanny, John can see all his standout features present. His hair is spot on, his countless freckles, and even the small scar he has on his right cheekbone is faintly present. 

Lafayette took the posture of when he was sitting at the beginning but added a thoughtful expression to his face. He probably took it from when John was focusing on his work. His eyebrows are hunched more together, and his lips are slightly pursed. He made him look older, more like a college student.

What makes the painting unique though, is that instead of modern colouring that makes a painting look like a photograph, Lafayette has made it look older. The colours are darker and the shadows tinge with golds and greens. It reminds John of old renaissance paintings. Laurens has never loved a portrait of himself more.

John’s thoughts are ripped away as he hears Lafayette suck a quick breath in as he turns and gets a view of John’s work.

Laurens could never do plain and simple when it comes to art. He always liked to add flavour to his pieces. His own artwork of Lafayette was sketched simply, the man grinning and looking at ease. The colouring however was a different story.

The vibrance that Lafayette emits when he smiles is pure colour. It’s like a dazzling rainbow, impossible to miss. John has tried to capture that with paints. Instead of the usual whites and blacks for highlights and shadows, John replaced them with different neon shades. 

It weaves colour through the piece and gives it a much more abstract feel. John might have taken that even a step further with Laf’s hair. He’d started off just drawing the pulled back, ponytailed hair as the plain black it was, but a slip of some white paint and John may have left the hair looking like a galaxy. The neon colours from the rest of the work blend into the hairline and match up with the colours dotted throughout the galaxy. 

Depending on how you look at the piece, one moment it may be a person, the next moment a snapshot of deep space.

The concept seems convoluted now though. Lafayette is staring at the easel incredulously, like he can’t comprehend what he’s witnessing. He hates it. Laurens wonders briefly if there’s a way to get kicked out of this club, like if you insult someone enough with a terrible painting.

“ _This is incredible._ ” John wonders if maybe he has forgotten all his French, because he’s pretty sure Lafayette just complimented his work.

“John… I am at a loss for words. How did you…the colours are superb! So original, I did not take you for someone with such a style.” Lafayette seems to ramble as he gestures helplessly at the work. “I wasn’t even smiling; how did you add it?”

“When I was finishing the sketch, you smiled at something across the room. I just sort of stole the expression. I hope you don’t mind.” John’s scratching the back of his neck before he can stop himself.< p/>

“Mind? Non, non. It…I mean I- I adore it. Truly.”

John can’t stop the blush that creeps up his neck and blossoms across his face, he wasn’t used to such intense and genuine praise for his work. 

“Are you happy?” Lafayette gestures to his own work.

“Oh, oh yes! No, it’s stunning too. I look…well I look like a very sophisticated college student.”

They both laugh at the statement before they think that they shouldn’t be laughing together. That they shouldn’t be having this moment.

Almost as if they think the same thought, Laurens looks a bit more warily at Lafayette, just as the taller man nibbles thoughtfully at his bottom lip.

“Alright guys! Time to clean up our supplies. Don’t forget to take your gifts home with you and thank your fellow artists.”

John and Lafayette quickly clean up their brushes and plates. They pack away their own paints in silence and pass each other their work gently, both cradling the pieces like new treasures. 

“John.” The use of his first name is a bit jarring coming from Lafayette, but Laurens turns his head anyways. “Where are you heading now?”

Okay, John was not expecting that question.

“Uh, the rec room in the dorms probably, if my friends are still there.” Lafayette nods like it’s an acceptable answer and motions towards the door.

“I am also heading to the dorms, walk with me?”

Laurens just nods dumbly as he lets Lafayette hold the door open for him as they’re one of the last to leave the art room. With how late it is into October, the sky is already pitch black as they walk through the quiet campus. 

John has no idea what to say to the other man, no idea why they were even walking together. What happened to angry glares as they pass in the halls and blatantly ignoring one another.

“May I ask you a question?”

“I think you just did.”

Lafayette somehow can express both joy and disgust at John’s reply as he scoffs down at the shorter man.

“Sorry, yeah go ahead.” John stuffs his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket so Lafayette can’t seem him anxiously fiddle with them.

Despite the encouragement, the French man seems tongue tied for a minute. They’re only a couple minutes from the dorms, but he seems to struggle with phrasing his question.

“Sometimes John, you seem like a… decent person.” 

John isn’t sure if he should be offended or not. What does that even mean?

“Thank you?” Lafayette groans a bit as he realises how it sounds.

“ _Would asking me in French help?_ ” Laurens offers, getting more intrigued by the second.

Lafayette shakes his head though, a shadow passing across his face as he meets John’s eyes. They’ve stopped walking. They’re now standing just off to the edge of a lamp light; they’re partially washed in its white light and partially drenched by shadows. The warmth from the man seems to vanish as he puffs out his chest and sneers down at John.

“Why did you write that horrible thing on your door? Did you believe in it? Find it humorous or amusing? I know you and Alex enjoyed hurting each other with pranks the first few weeks, but did you honestly see it as a prank and not a hateful disgusting thing?” 

Lafayette’s accent gets thicker when he’s angry. That’s the first thing John takes away from the question. The second is that, having been distracted by his most prized possessions dangling from his bedroom ceiling, John had never actually cleared up that he didn’t write on their whiteboard. That he hadn’t used the word faggot or called Alex it by any means. Suddenly Lafayette’s hostility through the evening made a lot more sense.

“Um, about that-” John is about to explain everything. From the confusion, to Lee, to the fact that John was in fact, not homophobic. But speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

“John? I thought that was you. Are you bothering my friend here Frenchy?” Lee’s voice cuts through the silent lane, the man had completely snuck up on the pair when they’d stopped.

“Charles, hey. No he’s not-”

“How about you piss off Lee. Two adults are having a conversation here.” Apparently, Lafayette’s tone with John this evening wasn’t a fraction of how hateful and disgusted the man could sound. It seems he saves this level of hostility for Lee. 

Charles sneers up at Lafayette as he crosses his arms and stands just a bit too close to John for his own comfort. His brow raises expressing some form of amusement. For the first time since university started, his goons aren’t with him.

“Really? As I see it, it’s some low-life immigrant sinner cornering my dear friend in the dark on campus. Not a great sight for you is it?”

“Charles, that’s not-” John tries to deescalate the situation, tries to go back to the moment where he was going to make everything better, not worse.

“Funny Charles, all I see is a slimy, daddy’s boy coward standing before me.” For a split-second Laurens assumes Lafayette is talking about him, before he realises the insult is aimed at Lee. The pair seem to have forgotten Laurens is there. 

Lee lets out a chuckle at the comment before he brings his hands behind him and clenches them against his lower back.

“A coward huh? Think what you want Lafayette, but at least I’m not some pathetic cry baby. I heard Hamilton was a mess after my little present.” Lafayette tenses up at the mention of his half-brother. His hands balling up into fists. 

“Present?” Lafayette’s tone is strained, like he’s holding himself back from starting a yelling match.

“Yes, p-r-e-s-e-n-t.” Lee exaggerates the word, clearly mocking Lafayette’s ability to speak English. “Oh, of course, I heard you and your other pal didn’t get to see it. Here, I even have it as my lock screen.”

Laurens can feel the blood draining from his face. The picture had been enough to turn his blood cold, he knew it was going to hit Lafayette a lot harder. As predicted the taller man squares up at the phone, his face morphing from horror to fury in a split second. 

“You disgusting, vile piece of human dirt.”

John watches the swing of Lafayette’s fist coming in slow motion. It’s on a clear path to impact Lee’s jaw, the guy deserves it, but Laurens works out in split second that if Lafayette punches Lee, he’ll live to regret it.

In a flash, the years of self-defence classes his dad put him through to ‘toughen’ him up, come in handy. John manages to reach forward in a single step and bring up his forearm just quick enough to block Lafayette’s hit and push the French man back a step.

The look of betrayal on Lafayette’s face is painful. The other man doesn’t even look that furious anymore, just hurt. Laurens wants to blurt out that punching Lee would be a mistake, that the guy’s dad pays thousands, if not millions to the university and anyone who messes with his son will probably end up getting expelled, at best. At worst, sued for thousands and charged with physical assault. 

Instead, Lafayette speaks up first.

“You knew about that, didn’t you?” Lafayette gestures to the image on Lee’s phone.

Charles is grinning now, patting John on the back and winking at Lafayette over his shoulder. The question is difficult to answer, because John did know. He just found out after the fact.

“Of course John knew! He’s a man with a great sense of humour.” 

John winces slightly at the comment, he’s sure he looks ashamed right now. He feels ashamed, he feels wronged. He should have cleared this all up sooner with Alex, the day he found out about it. Now, no matter what he says, it’ll look like he’s just covering his own ass and lying through his teeth.

Lafayette just shakes his head at the two of them, a look of pure distaste across his face. He turns from the pair without another word. His steps are brisk and long as he puts as much space between Laurens and himself as possible.

John opens his mouth to call for him, but closes it as he realises that he doesn’t know what magical collection of sentences could possibly dig him out of this mess. He can't imagine the atmosphere that will a wait him back in his room tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure at this point some of you are starting to realise, I'm not playing around with that slow burn tag. I assure you though, stay hopeful and pray, the gay is on the way ;) 
> 
> Also thank you for all the support on my recent chapters and all the lovely comments! <3


	14. Point Of Information

John was right about college and Halloween. The week leading up to the holiday is filled with orange and black decorations, pumpkin flavoured café drinks and cheap costumes. Not to mention the dorms are filled with cheap decorations and movement sensing nightmare animatronics. The Frankenstein by the front doorway scared the crap out of Laurens the first day he walked by it, when a laugh erupted from the monstrosity and it’s eyes lit up red and yellow.

Despite John’s least favourite holiday approaching, his last two weeks have been filled with some great moments with his friends… and some terribly awkward ones with Hamilton. Ever since John’s day with Lafayette, Hamilton has been completely cold with John. He’s not even angry or passive aggressive anymore, just chilly. They work on their project together at least four hours a week, but they never once go off topic. It’s very professional and proper…John hates it. 

He’s tried a few nights to think up a speech strong enough to convince Alexander of his innocence with the white board incident. But his prepping always circles back to the fact that he’d have to admit a lot to Alexander to have the other man believe him. There is certain secrets John just isn’t ready to give up yet. So, he lets the chasm between them grow. 

“I just, I don’t know what to do. She’s gorgeous, she’s smart, she’s funny… I sound like an idiot, don’t I?”

John laughs kindly at Burr as he rambles on about his new favourite topic… or should John say, favourite person.

“No. What you sound like, is a lovesick puppy.”

“I know, I know. I wish I could do something.” Burr groans, rubbing a hand across his face as they take a shortcut across a patch of grass. They’re on their way to the weekly meet of the college’s debate club.

“You can. It’s called talking to her.”

“She has a boyfriend.” 

“Exactly, they’re hardly married. You still have a chance!”

Burr gives him a look that’s both disgusted and pained. 

“That’s hardly a gentlemen’s move.”

“Gentlemen don’t get the worm…or something.”

Burr cracks up at John’s awful attempt at giving advice. Laurens really is the last person that should be giving out love advice. He’s never even had his own stable romantic relationship, just a string of flings and one-night stands. Still, his friend has been in agony the last two weeks over this girl. 

“I’m starting to see why you’re single John.”

“Wow, low blow coming from the guy pining over a taken woman.”

The comment earns John a very rare smack on the arm.

“Aaron being violent? Laurens what scandal have you pulled off?” 

Jefferson and Madison are waiting for them by the front entrance to the building.

“Witty as always Thomas.” Burr grumbles, marching into the building and away from his cackling friends.

The group take their usual seats in the classroom the club uses, and Angelica writes up the two prompts for the evening on a whiteboard.

“Hey guys, so this week Room A will be taking the topic ‘Healthcare needs more funding than education’. Room B will be, as always, a relevant political topic, this week it’s ‘Same-sex marriage needs to be legalised this year’. As always you guys have five minutes to pick a room and if you’d like to debate for or against the motion.”

Laurens misses the stink eye Hamilton sends him across the room as Jefferson grabs his arm and begins chattering at full rant.

“This is perfect man! Both our fathers are currently debating this. We can nail the debate this week. We have to partner up.” Laurens doesn’t know how to look at Jefferson’s puppy dog face and tell him no.

“I- I don’t think that’s a good idea. My dad and I have quite different opinions and…” 

“Oh c’mon John, please! I’ve never asked you to debate with me before, it’ll be fun.”

Burr sends him a sympathetic look over Jefferson’s shoulder. He’d been bribed into debating with Thomas last week. Jefferson was an excellent debater, he just often got excited when he spoke and ended up getting quite competitive. Madison is usually the only one who can deal with it.

However, James is already speaking with another girl from the club about healthcare funding and John realises he’s a lost cause.

“Fine. But I won’t be any good. honest.”

“Lies. I’ve seen you debate. You’re excellent.”

John knows he’s pretty good, his dad has forced him to debate competitively since he was in elementary school. But usually, he’s picking a side and topic he actually wants to debate.

As they both get up to head for the room, John notices Hamilton and Mulligans also heading to that room. Great. The first week they’d be debating in the same room and this would be the topic.

“Aaron you’re going to debate this topic too?” John hadn’t even noticed his friend is joining them until Jefferson points him out.

“Oh no. I just want to witness this.” Laurens glares at the smug look on his friend’s face as he watches Burr’s eyes dart between John and Alexander. He’s about to hit back at him with a smart remark, but Angelica is already at the front of the room and is calling up anyone who wants to debate.

Hamilton and Mulligan instantly shoot up on the side of ‘For the motion’, no one challenges them for the position, considering how active the two already are on campus with the LGBTQ+ community, there’s probably no one else that can debate it as well as them. 

Jefferson practically drags John up to the front of the room and on to the side of the podium that is for those who are on the side of ‘Against the motion’, there seems to be no competition for debating their side either.

“Excellent we have two sides for our debate, we’ll give both teams five minutes to come up with some points and an opening remark and then we’ll get down to it.”

There’s always so little time to prepare that the room feels like it melts away as John scribbles anything he can onto his flashcards for his argument. Jefferson and himself barely even confer with one another, bar giving the briefest idea of what they’re going to say. Jefferson is going to handle the opening speech and John the closing one, with both giving points in between.

“We’re going to get booed out of here.” John warns him, noticing a large group of Pride members in the room.

“Nonsense. These are excellent points. Just speak the truth.” Jefferson reassure him as Angelica rings the bell.

Mulligans takes the opening side of the ‘For the motion’ side. His points are all strong and the kind of stuff John would expect. He speaks about equality, rights, a modern world, adoption. He doesn’t go too much into any of his points. He just brings them up and gives context for their side’s arguments. John’s sure Hamilton will be beating examples into the crowd on his turn.

When it comes to Jefferson, he brings up the common counter points. He speaks about Religion, he speaks about civil partnership already existing, he speaks about the definition of marriage. They are arguments that John has a weird feeling about, but he doesn’t have time to think on them too much because now Hamilton is up.

The man rips through what Jefferson just said. He brings up points that John is already thinking, he brings up new points, uses examples and statistics, brings up the weaknesses of civil partnership. He mentions a lot of things in his five minutes of speech time. Although Hamilton and Laurens speeches can be interrupted by questions from the audience, no one asks him any.

He sits down looking proud of himself, just as John must stand and approach the podium. He can feel the stones gathering in the pit of the stomach, he can feel the glares from the people in the crowd that he had once hoped to befriend when he came to college. The people that are out and proud, the people that are sitting there with their arms folded, ready to not take any shit from John.

Laurens is usually calm when he debates. He’s never had stage fright or nerves. But now his palms are sweaty, his leg is jittering ever so slightly and he has to pretend to adjust the microphone just so he can have a moment to steady himself .

He clears his throat as the bell chimes and begins his own speech for the debate.

John takes a much more liberal side than Jefferson when it comes to his points, and most of his speech is just trying to counter what Hamilton has said. John says the usual opening lines of greeting the audience and the chairperson before he begins.

“My fellow competitors have made some great points tonight.” A scoff from Hamilton can be heard. “But I think they’ve missed the actual topic we’re debating.” The comment earns him chatter from the crowd and some gazes narrowing. 

“The topic tonight is not about should same-sex marriage be legalised, it’s not about homophobia, injustice or oppression.” John can practically feel Hamilton’s eyes boring into the side of his head. Angelica’s amused eyebrow raise from the chairperson’s seat though, gives John some strength.

“If the topic was just about same-sex couples being allowed to get married, then sure, they’d be strong and valid points. But the topic tonight is about should same-sex marriage be legalised this year.” Most of the crowd is still looking pissed off at John, but now there’s a note of curiosity to their expressions.

“America. Our great country, the land of the free. A quote so outdated and misused that no one can trust it anymore. There’s so much wrong in America right now, so many injustices. Our healthcare is overpriced to the point where your wage and job can dictate if you die from a curable disease tomorrow. Our class system is so messed up that the colour of your skin decides if you get a scolding from police, or a bullet in the back of the head. Our education system is lacking behind most other first world countries, and most of the world is laughing at our tuition fees to universities, and it’s not because they think it’s funny, it’s because it’s ridiculous. Our country is drowning in debt, intolerance, homelessness, unemployment, there is so much going on this year. Did most of you even know that the US is not a signatory of Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which recognizes "the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger," a policy that 158 other countries have adopted? Sure, we have food stamps, but they don’t solve even a fraction of our hunger problems with millions of American households being labelled as food insecure every year.” John takes a moment to pause and take a breath, no one looks angry in the crowd anymore, at least not angry at him, just angry in general.

“So, I’m sorry but do I think that same-sex marriage _needs_ to be legalised _this year_? My answer is no. It doesn’t need to be, people just want it to be. Food however, is a fundamental need; as is healthcare; and as most people will agree, education. Civil partnership can still join same-sex people together in lawful unity, but no food means someone dies. Not being able to afford health care, means someone dies. Not being educated, means the poverty cycle will just continue. For these reasons, our side opposes this motion.”

Laurens isn’t expecting the round of applause that follows his speech. It’s not as loud as Hamilton’s, not as righteous. There’re still people in the crowd that look like they want to punch him, people that refuse to clap, but he’s definitely surprised them. Even Jefferson looks flabbergasted from his seat beside the podium.

John can see Hamilton standing up in the corner of his eye without having to turn his head.

“Point of information.” 

John could say no. In debates you’re allowed to refuse a question from anyone who tries to ask one. But it looks bad for the speaker. It makes it look like your argument is weak. 

“Go ahead.” John meets the icy glare of his roommate as he responds.

“Everything you mention requires funding, it requires complex systems and budgeting. But changing the law so that two people of the same sex can get married, is free. There’s no cost to it, it’s something that can be done this year. It’s something that can change people’s lives, their mental health and their ability to start a family. It needs to be done this year because there is no valid reason for it not to be.” 

Laurens is suddenly wishing he’d ignored the point and just concluded his speech. In a split second his brain runs through all the ways he can tackle this, it goes through how he can devalue the point and win the debate. 

John clear his throat to give himself another second. It’s hard, it’s hard in this moment to argue back against such an excellent point… because John _agrees_. There’s no part of him that wants same-sex marriage to be illegal. He wants to get married someday, he wants to adopt easier, to be more secure in life. He’s chosen his side in this debate though, there’s no going back now.

“If we prioritise everything this country does by how _easy_ it is to do, then we’ll never solve any of the most vital problems we face. It might be easier to make same sex marriage legal this year, but the more honourable and the most important move is to make changes in the areas that are necessary. Hunger should not exist in a first world country, illiteracy should not exist, homelessness should not exist. Marriage can wait, the pointless deaths of Americans cannot.”

Hamilton is red in the face at this point, his hands balled into fists. Laurens isn’t happy with his answer, but he is proud of how he handled it.

“Why don’t you tell your father that.” The comment throws John off, his smile falls and John feels like he got slapped across the face.

“Alexander!” Angelica, who is chairing the debate suddenly stands up, banging her fist on the table as she does so. “That’s a speaking out of turn penalty. Now sit down.”

Alexander just scoffs, his glare tearing away from John. Laurens makes his way back to his seat, his knees practically buckling as he collapses onto it. He can feel a heat under his collar, an itch on his palms. This is why he didn’t want to debate in the same room as Alex. This is why every week, no matter his interest in a topic, he chooses the other room.

“Dude, that was fucking amazing. After Hamilton’s outburst too, we have to win.”

John politely nods his head, pushing a grinning expression onto his face as his mind starts to wander and dissociate. He barely registers the judging period passing and Angelica announcing their side won the debate. 

Or at least, they won this round. They’ll be more debaters coming up and down over the next hour to give their opinions and compete again. John allows Jefferson and Burr to drown him in compliments for a minute when he returns to the audience before he excuses himself for the bathroom. 

He doesn’t actually have to use it, but he can’t stand to hear the debate again. He can’t get Hamilton’s words out of his head. He can’t shake the feeling of being called out.

What’s getting to him is that, Hamilton is right. Henry Laurens should be focusing on those things. All politicians should. Instead of squabbling over religion and preference, human life should be at the centre of all their decision making.

But that’s not how politics works, and Henry Laurens made it clear the day he found out his son was a faggot, that he doesn’t give two shits about John’s opinion on anything political. 

_“How did I raise a delusional, infected liberal”_

“Nice debating. I bet if felt pretty good to win a debate on the side of homophobes while getting to say righteous and moral points that paint you out as some sort of saint.”

John isn’t sure he has the strength to turn on Hamilton, who has clearly followed him down the empty corridor to the toilets. After a deep breath though, he realises he doesn’t really have a choice.

“If you have something to say Hamilton, just say it. Sarcasm is a coward’s way out.”

Alexander has the decency to look annoyed as John turns to him with his retort.

“A coward? I’m not the one living in the 21st century that’s afraid of two people of the same sex being married, or having kids, or getting to live their life as normal and entitled as everybody else.”

John’s too tired to handle this. He just can’t find it in him to battle Alexander again, not when he agrees with what the man is saying.

“Yeah? Well neither am I.”

The comment surprises his roommate. It’s one of those rare moments where Alex is actually speechless. It’s clear he’s come out to the corridor for a fight, he’s probably prepared for any argument John can make. He isn’t ready for John to suddenly agree with him though.

The silence stretches on, the pair keeping their gazes locked as John can see the gears turning in Hamilton’s mind. 

Eventually John rolls his eyes and turns away, heading for the bathroom again.

“But your father, he-”

“He what?” John whips around to point a finger at Alexander, the anger and frustration of the last few weeks finally boiling over the top of John’s patience reserve.

“He hates gays. Immigrants? Puppies? Maybe. Maybe he does, I’m sure a quick google search and quotes from articles will confirm whatever questions you have about him. Amazingly though, you will find if you search hard enough-” John steps closer to Hamilton as he speaks, moving slowly forward until he’s a step away from Alex’s schooled expression. “that he is in fact his own person, and that I am not him.”

Alex’s pupils dart left and right as he tries to decide what eye he can glare into hard enough to find a speck of deception. The air between the two is practically electric, after all their stunted conversations and passive aggressive comments, some of the truth is finally coming out.

John is both relieved, and terrified for how Hamilton might respond.

He doesn’t though. A woman comes back from the bathroom, passes them and has to politely ask them to move out of her way. The moment that had been building fizzles away and Alex simply scoffs before he follows her back to the main room. Not even gracing John with an idea of what’s going through his roommate’s head.

John feels lightheaded as he stumbles to the bathroom. He doesn’t want Alex to push him about this. He doesn’t want to have to explain himself, because if he starts, he’ll end up telling his own worst enemy, the most vulnerable things about himself.

They’ll be nothing stopping Alex then from running to Washington with all sorts of front-page news headlines about his main political rival. 

No, Laurens must avoid this for as long as he can. He can’t let his world start to unravel just as he’s building a life for himself on campus. 

If anyone is going to ruin John’s life, it’ll be himself. Not Hamilton.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> Sorry this chapter took so long! I would have mentioned in notes in the last chapter if I'd known I'd be taking this long a hiatus. I've been blown away by such lovely comments and people asking if my health is alright, it has been! I will be starting an internship next week though and these last 2 weeks were the end of my holidays. I ended up filling my schedule with nights in with friends and hobby stuff, so I really didn't have a night off to write or post. 
> 
> Some people also asked about a schedule for this fic. I don't have one! Mainly because if I did it would make this seem like work and not fun and I'd struggle more to keep it up. I was initially posting nearly every night, if not every second or third. With my internship now though it'll probably be once or twice a week. I'm not leaving it though! I haven't even written my favourite chapters yet ;) It'll just take a bit more time for you guys to get to read the story I want to finish.
> 
> Also, I'm not from America. I know this chapter has a few heavy points on the situation over there and I just want a disclaimer here that I don't have a personal idea of what it's like to live in America, I just used basic debate points to set this scene! So I hope I didn't insult anyone with the dialogue, it's all for the plot and the angst <3
> 
> Anyways! I just thought I'd leave this long note here to address my break and thank you all once again for supporting me so much through this fic. I look forward to uploading again in a few days :D


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